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By Dirisu Yakubu, ABUJA

Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Dr Folasade Yemi-Esan, has expressed worry over the failure of some insurance companies to pay death benefits of deceased civil servants in the past few years.

Dr. Yemi-Esan, stated this at a meeting with underwriters of Group Life Insurance Policy for federal civil servants in her office in Abuja on Tuesday.

She noted that while the federal government “is doing its best to improve the welfare of families of deceased workers through the prompt release of funds for the payment of death benefits, the underwriters and brokers are frustrating the efforts by their unserious attitude.”

A statement signed by Abdullahi Ahmed, Deputy Director, Communications, Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, quoted Yemi-Esan s saying that the meeting was necessary to bridge the gap that exists between underwriters and brokers as it was unreasonable to continue doing the same thing repeatedly without achieving meaningful result.

“If the brokers are no longer relevant, then they should be blacklisted,” she added.

She informed them that payment of insurance claims is not rocket science, stressing that the Office of the Head of Service performs a similar function by settling a backlog of claims not covered by the present arrangement, seamlessly.

The statement noted that the Key Performance Indexes, KPIs, on settlement of claims as at September 2022 indicate that the total number of claims reported was 776; the number of claims paid was 357; the total sum of claims reported was 4,201,392,384.27; the number of awaiting EDVs from HoS/MDAs 101; total amount paid 1,574,709,562.12; the number of awaiting DVs from LEAD Underwriter 150 (2,626,682,822.15), total amount expected from EDVs 785,123,928.73, number of incomplete documentations 168 and total outstanding claims is 1,841,558,893.42.

Dr. Yemi-Esan further stated that from the breakdown of the report, there is a clear indication of a huge gap between the number of claims reported and those paid, adding that there is a need for improvement from the Insurance service providers, as there is always room for other alternatives.

In his remarks on behalf of the underwriters, the Lead Underwriter and CEO of Old Mutual (Nig.) Ltd., Mr Segun Omosehin thanked the Head of Service for her concerns and show of outright displeasure with their low performance. He made a firm commitment to support the Head of Service by doing the needful to bridge the gap existing between the Underwriters and the Brokers, which he identified as the major issue responsible for the late payment of claims to families of departed civil servants.