By Rosemary Onuoha

MR Darlington Mgbojikwe is the President of International Federation of Adjusting Association (IFAA) and immediate past President of Institute of Loss Adjusters of Nigeria (ILAN). In this interview, Mgbojikwe reveals that young graduates are not attracted to the loss adjusting profession because of poor remuneration. He also spoke on how the IFAA presidency will benefit the country.

CHALLENGES as ILAN president

The challenges are many fold. I took over as the President of the Institute of Loss Adjusters of Nigeria (ILAN) in 2007. Having been a Vice President for the previous four years I have put in eight years of service in ILAN. During that period it started with the issue of poor remuneration in terms of what we earn. If you look at what we earn for the technical services we offer to the insurance industry, it is a pittance.

The scale method of remuneration has been in use since 1992 without being reviewed. So the issue came up since 2005 when I was vice president and then when I took over as President, I continued the crusade. Success was achieved in 2008, unfortunately the Nigeria Insurers Association (NIA), the umbrella body of insurers in their own wisdom asked us to hold on while we continue to negotiate. We are in 2011 and nothing has changed. So it is a very big challenge and I regret that I was unable to achieve that.

I had a two pronged agenda which was to get this scale approved and then get a Charter. As regards the Charter a lot of things have been done and I would have wished that the Charter was out during my time but all the same ILAN is an institute, so the effort should not be in vain. These were the two things I faced squarely.

Future of loss adjusting

The main handicap now in the sector is in terms of the earning power. Most loss adjusting firms are what you can describe as family kind of business. It is a kind of service that is so much personalised because if you work out a claim, and you are technically sound, both the insurer and the insured will be happy.

But if you do it so badly, it will reflect on your self and the firm. The insurance industry has not been able to appreciate our efforts maybe because the industry here is still at infancy being that insurance awareness is low and that reflects on the kind of income they generate.

So when it gets to paying for such services you can see that it is not appreciated. All the same, the young graduates are not attracted to being loss adjusters because the remuneration is not attractive enough. They should give us hourly rates in Nigeria as is obtainable all over the world. But the NIA don’t want to because they believe that it can be grossly abused due to Nigerian factor.

That is why we are still using the scale method. But the scale method is archaic as it is not used any where in the world even in South Africa. So we have been advocating that they pay us on hourly basis, they said ‘no’, we called for a review of the scale method they still said ‘no.’

Setbacks from underwriters

As far as underwriting is concerned a lot of things are not being done well because operators in the insurance industry are not together. Not together in the sense that they are not earning ordinarily what they should be earning because of the rates that are applied to risks. They are not collecting the kind of premium that will enable them pay claims as and when they arise.

So the issue is that the insurance industry cannot be excised from the larger society. What is affecting the larger society is affecting the insurance industry. However, that doesn’t mean that the work of the loss adjuster should not be appreciated, it should be appreciated.

And I believe that once the loss adjuster earns what he should earn, he should be able to put out some fund for the training and the re-training of their staff. The trend right now is that most people after working for a few years want to be an adjuster operating from their bedroom. Such businesses, even if they are not loss adjusting, the success is so limited.

But I believe that with the new Local Content Policy of the Federal Government of Nigeria, it is now going to bring a lot of fund for insurance underwriters. In the near future they will start to handle big claims and big claims translate to big fees for the adjuster, maybe then things will get better. So we are happy that the Local Content Law is working because I can see that a lot of risks are now being domiciled in Nigeria and the fact that many adjusters are coming to work with local firms.

Institute’s exams

We have done what we could do for now which is to ask people working in underwriting and broking firms to be taking the Institute’s examinations. So once they take the examination and pass, we will award them the Associate level which is Certified cadre. When the Charter that we are pursuing comes then that will make them to come out and practice as qualified loss adjusters and once they continue in practice under an existing member firm we now upgrade that Certified which they got by examination to the full professional level.

Some of our members opposed the move because they are afraid of bringing people who are not well trained to handle claims. Of a truth, when we open up to people who are not trained or experienced, anything they do will reflect on us. Loss adjusting is the only profession that I know that if you do a single job, and you don’t do it well, you will not have another job because you are serving a very small segment of the society and that is the insurance companies.

So there is that urge for

you to excel in whatever claim you are given, even if it is one naira claim because one naira claim can ruin your name. The Nigerian society is such that if you don’t do a claim well somebody might say that you have been offered a bribe. So that is why we should be above board at any given time.

Benefits of affiliation to IFAA

One benefit of being a member of International Federation of Adjusting Association (IFAA) is that we are listed amongst a profession that has a global scope. With the internet, the world can see us. The website of the global body is linked to every other Institutes site and our names are there. So the transfer we are talking about, by working in collaboration with all those advanced societies will come in.

If we open up and other people come in here to work, you will be learning one or two tricks that we need in doing our work. I am not saying that you should not be going for training or whatever, every profession has its peculiar kind of skill but when you are working with somebody who is more exposed than you, you will learn one or two things that you will use as a practitioner.

So educationally, we are gaining from the IFAA. The conference we lost would have brought in loss adjusters from all over the world to come to Nigeria. And if they now come, it is not only loss adjusters that would have benefited the insurers, even brokers. So the globalisation that is being preached over the years, is not coming in terms of money or whatever, it is coming in terms of technology transfer. So I take it that it is a major loss that we were unable to organise this conference.

Challenges as IFAA president

The challenges of the office are many fold. First is that now that I am the President and I am from Africa, it is expected that as a Nigerian, I will bring somebody from francophone countries, from West African up Congo, which I am already doing. I am doing it on my own. You would have to contact them and then preach to them that it is good to be a member of the international body.

It will make them improve on their skills and improve on good corporate governance that is being preached all over the world. So these are the major challenges. I can tell you that this is my sixth month; I have not been able to break in particularly into the French speaking West African countries.

Another issue is that adjusters are not too many; an example is Ghana where they have only one firm that is servicing the whole Ghana market. So some of us who have some links internationally do go to Ghana and work and come out. I believe that very soon they might introduce something that might stop us from popping in and out to come and do those jobs unless to come and establish a company.

Growing the loss adjusting profession

The first and foremost thing is for the insurance industry to grow, because if the industry doesn’t grow loss adjusting will not grow. We are just part of the insurance industry. The loss adjuster can be a lawyer, a quantity surveyor but can add the background to the insurance knowledge to be able to be a good adjuster.