By  Favour Nnabugwu

National Insurance Commission, NAICOM, has condemned the expansion drive of the country’s insurance companies in foreign countries over and above their spread in the country, at the expense of the nation’s untapped market such as micro-insurance.

The commission was particularly peeved by those companies that cannot boast of 10 offices in Nigeria but have offices in other countries such as Rwanda, Ghana, Gambia, Cameroon, Uganda and Sao Tome and Principe, among others.

Commissioner for Insurance, Mr. Fola Daniel, expressed his frustration at the inaugural meeting for diagnostic study of micro-insurance by German’s Deutsche Gasellschaft fur Internationele Zusam-menarbeit, GIZ, and Access to Insurance Initiative, AII, in Abuja, yesterday.

The GIZ, Daniel said, had a time line of 24 months to develop and market micro-insurance for Nigerian insurance market, noting that 80 per cent of the country’s populace lived in the rural areas that insurance companies needed to reach.

The idea to develop and market micro-insurance, he said, was mooted by the commission which invited a combination of experts from Brazil, Canada, India, etc, under GIZ to help the country.

undertake a research study of the country’s micro-insurance, leveraging on their experience and success stories in the interest of the country’s insurance sector.