By Rosemary Onuoha

Chairman of NIA, Mr. Olusola Ladipo-Ajayi, who made the assertion at the Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria (CIIN) Educational Conference in Ibadan, stressed that the move is not for the FRSC to hijack motor insurance from the insurance industry but is a collaborative process between the NIA and the FRSC to wipe out fake insurers in the country.

It will be recalled that the FRSC is creating a new data base of vehicle licenses and is gradually phasing out the old numbers, and is demanding that all insurance motor certificates must be automated. However, the automation has generated a huge outcry in the insurance sector because they fear that the business might slip away from the sector because it might be easy for hackers to hack into the automation system and hijack the scheme.

But the NIA president assured his colleagues that the motor insurance business will not slip away from them.

Ladipo-Ajayi explained that in the process of trying to do new licensing, the FRSC will contact NIA data base which will be linked to FRSC data base and consequently determine whether the client at hand is dealing with a government recognised insurance company or not.

If at all there are going to be hackers, Ladipo-Ajayi stated that it is the insurance practitioners themselves that will allow hackers to penetrate their system.

Meanwhile, Mr. Wale Oshodi, a stakeholder in the industry argued that the news of motor insurance going away from the insurance industry should not be taken as speculation but the industry should sit up and make sure it is retained.

He argued that it is not enough for practitioners to sit back and say that it is mere speculation without doing anything because that was how the industry lost the Pension Scheme to the pension industry, Health Insurance Scheme to NHIS and the Workmen’s Compensation Act to the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF).