*Deal fradulent, say insurance practitioners

Controversies have continued to trail the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation’s Consolidated Insurance Policy (NNPC-CIP) in the past nine years and has remained unabated over allegations of bloated premiums just as the Federal Government Group Life is being faulted on its insurance year.

Aggrieved insurance practitioners claimed that the NNPC-CIP was wrapped with fraud for seven years (from 2001 to 2008).

The protesters computed that the nation lost $150million on the NNPC-CIP within the seven years hence they wished that the Federal Government look into the books of the corporation within those years to verify their claims.

They said, “some insurance stakeholders would want the probe exercise to beam searchlight on the corporation’s Consolidated Insurance Package, CIP, alleging that Nigeria may have lost up to $150million to a scam perpetrated by operators of the CIP between 2001 and 2008.”

They asserted that the placing of the business in the international market had helped to puff up the CIP premium since 2001, adding that the dollar denominated business had continued to increase since that year.

Meanwhile, the oppressed operators claimed that the Federal Government group life did not only commenced its insurance year against the accepted insurance year which they said was January rather the FG’s group life commenced from March 2010.

According to them, “this is contrary to the provisions of the guidelines for life policy for employees jointly issued by the National Insurance Commission, NAICOM, and the National Pension Commission, NPC. Section 4 (1) of the guidelines states that ‘insurance coverage shall be for 12 months, from January through December and shall be renewable at the end of each coverage year.