By ROSEMARY ONUOHA
Underwriting companies under the auspices of the Nigerian Insurers Association, NIA, are optimistic that the Nigerian Insurance Industry Database, NIID, will curtail the unethical practices of some insurance brokers who are in the habit of siphoning premium meant for insurance companies.

According to the NIA, when the NIID becomes fully operational, these unprofessional brokers will no longer have any avenue to shortchange insurers.

Chairman of NIA, Mr. Olusola Ladipo-Ajayi, who made this assertion in Lagos, said that with NIID, no broker will collect premium and keep it because once he downloads the business on the database, it means he has collected the money. “So there is no story.

If you haven’t paid me, I am not going to load my policy on the database and if you load it for me, it means that you have taken the premium. There are no excuses, tomorrow I expect you to pay me,” he said. It will be recalled that the insurance industry had in the last quarter of 2010 set out to develop and implement a centralised database system, which will be repository of all insurance policies underwritten by insurance companies.

According to Ladipo-Ajayi, “ The advantages of going on this database are more and it will help to take the black market away because the fake operators cannot access our data base. If they try they will be rejected. So everybody will now take the pains of going to the right insurance company.

Even you as a policy holder, when we start, you are going to be given a number. If somebody hits your vehicle and says I have insurance, you bring your insurance I bring my own. When you text a given number, it will come back and confirm that you have valid insurance.  So the advantages are more.”

Apart from serving as authentic repository of the nation’s insurance industry data, the system is also intended to support the production of Insurance Certificates (initially for Motor and Marine) that are verifiable and traceable at the point of issuance and also at any point during its life cycle to the centralised database.

Another aim of the centralised database is to provide mechanisms for the verification of Insurance Certificates issued or presented as evidence of insurance for Motor and Marine at the first instance and then other classes of insurance.

Besides, it is expected that the solution will help in providing qualitative analysis of industry performance and serve as source of historical data for benchmarking, while also enabling the financial information of NIA members to be rendered electronically for ease of analysis.

By the time the centralised Insurance Database Solution becomes fully operational, it is expected that it will help in eradicating fake insurances, minimise multiple fraudulent claims and most importantly provide authentic, qualitative and comprehensive data on insurance for national policy formulation.