By Rosemary ONUOHA
Deputy Commissioner (Technical) of the National Insurance Commission, NAICOM, Mr. Ibrahim Hassan has called on insurance operators to discard the unhealthy attitude of struggling to gain a share of premium from oil and gas business by all cost.

Making this assertion recently Hassan said that the rivalry has created a lot of bad blood among insurance operators and strong ill-feelings such that the industry can hardly work together to develop a common agenda.

Hassan said “It is regrettable that the struggle to attain a share of premium from oil and gas insurance by local underwriters and intermediaries in Nigeria has generated strong ill-feelings such that the industry can hardly work together to develop a common agenda.”

He therefore charged players in the insurance industry to cooperate in order to play dominant role in the oil and gas business.

According to him, rather than unite, oil premium has tended to divide the industry, stating “This must be avoided if the real benefits of the local content Act can be realised. One way of achieving this objective is by ensuring that the selection process for brokers and companies that will underwrite government investments and other interests in oil and gas is transparent and meritorious. Until recently the process has been arbitrary and less than transparent.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Lanre Laoshe, an insurance broker has charged insurance practitioners to stop aiding oil companies operating in the country to break rules and regulations guiding oil and gas risk underwriting for their selfish gains.

Laoshe reiterated that ordinarily the oil majors want to play by the rules but some local operators who want to cut corners force them to do otherwise.

In his words “Sometimes these oil majors operating in the country want to obey the laws guiding oil and gas risk underwriting, but we always find a reason for them not to.”

According to Laoshe, the development is not encouraging because the oil companies have tended to see the practice as the standard norm in the industry, thereby throwing crumbs to Nigerian insurance companies while taking the huge chunk of oil business abroad leading to capital flight.

Laoshe lamented that it is the high rate of indiscipline in the insurance industry that has made the practice to go on unabated for a very long time, calling on practitioners in the sector to imbibe the character of discipline.