By Rosemary Onuoha

Mazi Okechukwu Unegbu, Managing Director of MaxiFund Investment Limited has tasked the National pension commission (PenCom) to develop the pension industry by ensuring that only those who know and understand the business of pension are the ones running pension firms.

Unegbu also asked the pension regulator to establish a training institute or collaborate with existing training bodies in order to ensure proper equipping of both pension fund managers and custodians.

The commission has also been advised not to toe the line of some new generation regulatory bodies which insist on doing both regulation and training but rather borrow a leaf from banking, insurance and stock market regulatory bodies and shift the job of training to training bodies while limiting itself to regulation to achieve positive results.

Unegbu who disclosed this in an interview with Vanguard in his office in Lagos said lack of training for proper understanding of the business of pension has sent many pension managers and custodians out of business in recent times.

He said at the on set many people jumped into the business because they heard that there is huge fund accumulation in the sector with out having a proper understanding of the business.

He said many of the pension fund managers did not understand that what they are entitled to is their commission as a result; they jumped into the business thinking that they would retain the entire accumulated fund.

According to him they did not carry out proper business plan, to study how the business is run.

He advised the remaining pension fund managers to take a critical look at the business, study the regulation, the pension reform act and find out areas of amendments to ensure smooth operation.

He also spoke on the present challenge facing the Nigeria insurance sector in the area of deepening the market saying the industry caused the problem. According to him a situation where the insurers positioned agents that could not properly write their names or interpret the policy document they have at hand to buyers and collect money in form of premium only to disappear at the end of the day gave a very bad image to the industry.

He said this is the reason most Nigerians don’t buy insurance today because they have no trust in the industry.

He noted that the only insurance policy Nigerians buy are those compulsory ones like the third party insurance and that even when they buy it they buy from fake dealers .

He said for Nigerians to regard insurance as business worth patronizing, the practitioners have to add some sweeteners. He said the issue of policy wordings and trust is important especially when risk occurs.

He observed that why most Nigerians do not buy insurance is because the policy wordings are not made clear at the beginning of the business contract but are being interpreted fully when risk occurs.

This according to him annoys the insuring public and makes them loose confidence in insurance. In his words “Even if the policies are made compulsory, the insurers should take a total look at themselves. The Nigeria insurers Association, the National insurance Commissions so as to add sweeteners that will make people want to buy insurance by themselves.”