The new Chairman of  the Nigerian Insurers Association (NIA), Mr Olusola Ladipo-Ajayi in this interview with Patience Saghana reinstates the association’s determination to retain the Workmen’s Compensation which the Nigerian Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) is trying to take away from the insurance industry and his plans for the insurance industry
Excerpts
 
As the new chairman of NIA, which areas do you plan to focus on?
Insurance needs to move at a faster rate in order to contribute better to the Gross Domestic Product and bear more risk in the country. There is low insurance awareness, people don‘t understand insurance. This has reduced their participation and eroded most of our responsibilities to the insuring public.

 Some patronise fake operators to purchase their insurance policies, most especially, the motor and marine policies. But they need to know that only registered insurance firms have the mandate to sell insurance and there are a lot of things they can benefit from it. NIA will ensure a better flow of information with the insuring public as well as provide a mechanism for them to be able to lodge their complaints on claims issue. We have a customer complaint bureau, which is a dispute solving mechanism for any displeased policy holder to lodge his complaint about any company.

Presently, NIA is looking for a respectable judge to head it. This is aimed at protecting the rights of the insured and to let them have confidence in us. We will also emphasise on the market agreement that we entered into to ensure fair play among members. The NIA is an association established to promote good relations among its competing members; it is not intended to stifle competition but to promote friendly competition. To make profit and achieve other objectives, operators need to do business properly.

The best thing is that our people should see it as their agreement, then it will be easier to implement. Though, there are different interests, we will create an environment of friendly competition. The NIA will work together with other trade unions in the industry; we need to see the industry as one. I will like to pay tribute to the Nigerian Council of Registered Insurers Brokers, the Institute of Loss Adjusters of Nigeria and the Association of Registered Insurance Agents with whom the NIA forms the industry. We shall continue to depend on them in all our efforts to bring sanity to the industry.
How insurance industry will speed up growth

The way out is to increase our visibility in doing our business right, in educating the people. Any society where insurance is not doing well is an underdeveloped economy. Insurance is the backbone of commerce and industry anywhere in the world because without the confidence and security that insurance brings, it makes enterprises very risky. Can you imagine people that are pumping millions of dollars into oil rigs and not covering that with insurance?

There is no way anybody can do serious business without an insurance backup and it is because we have not been involved in serious business. One other problem is the credit system. If the credit system is well developed, the surplus sector of the economy sponsors the deficit sector of the economy. By deficit, it doesn‘t mean that they don‘t have money. It means they have things to do, which cost more money than they can afford, and the surplus sector has more money than what it wants to do. So, instead of the money being idle, the financial system transfers the idle fund into the active deficit sector. That system cannot work unless there is insurance as its bedrock. If insurance is not doing well in Nigeria, it is because Nigeria is not doing well in commerce and industry.

It is a problem of lack of appreciation of insurance; everybody sees insurance as an unnecessary burden, because they don‘t understand the purpose. The individual apathy on the part of members of the public is transferred into public policy making process. In the National Assembly, most of them are members of the public; they are our representatives, they are drawn from among the population; and what is generally prevalent in the population will also be prevalent in the National Assembly. The only good thing is that the law making process allows for regulation.

What is NIA’s resolution about Nigerian Social Insurance Trust Fund On the ECB?
The NSITF, which has performed woefully in its own primary assignment, granted by the mandate of the society, is now, out of idleness, looking for relevance. And the only thing they can do is to come to a place where they see has succeeded. There is no problem with workmen compensation insurance, it only needs to be modified. The minister of labour was supposed to do the regulation to make insurance compulsory. If you look at the bill and the provision for workmen compensation, you will see a lot of inconsistencies, borne out of lack of understanding of what the law seeks to achieve. And if you want to do something, then you should replace it with something better. But with an institution with that record, how can you concentrate the compensation of employees in the hands of one that has no credibility? If one insurance company is not doing well, you can go to another. If NSITF bungles the whole system, who do we go to?

And how soon can the law be amended if it is promulgated?
It does not work out that way and I hope that our law makers will see reasons. We are also employees and we want our benefits to be protected; we want the best. I am speaking from two points of view, as an insurer and as an employee. The employees, who are the subject matter of the whole thing, should understand the real provision.