The National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) has announced to the public to be autonomous, devoid of any bureaucracy and interference from external forces on its activities in the industry, the statement read.
For clarification, it means that the commission is no longer under the Ministry of Finance, as regarded previously.
Also, NAICOM may no longer ‘bark like a toothless bulldog’ but be able to carry out its responsibilities and threats against erring operators with ease.
The Commission is autonomous, devoid of any bureaucracy and interference from external forces on its activities in the industry.
Accordingly, the impact of NAICOM’s autonomy is being felt in the industry as the new status enables it to easily cancel the license of any erring operators, as seen last month with the cancellation of Niger Insurance Plc and Standard Alliance Plc.
While some stakeholders fear the renewed power of the commission, especially the ability to cancel company licenses with ease, others believe the granting of full autonomy to the similar to other regulatory authorities in the financial services sector, will allow it deal with the increasing unethical practices in the industry.
Commissioner for Insurance in an interview in Kenya affirmed the new status of the commission.
Reviewing regulatory laws across Africa, Thomas said a lot of our laws had been reviewed in the last 50 years, especially on operations.
Beyond this, he said, some of the institutions that were merged with bureaucratic structures have been separated to operate like organisations that has a structure that can stand on its own.
Citing Nigeria, he said the industry is part of the Ministry of Finance, making it also to be part of a bureaucratic structure.
He said: “Today, it stands alone as a structure that is relatively operative as a corporate structure, and this would make a lot of difference. We now have operational autonomy that enable our operations.
“While this is happening in Nigeria, there are still some countries that have not been able to achieve this. We still have other country’s jurisdictions where the regulation is merged under the wings and caprices of the bureaucratic structure either with the ministry or some of them are still merged with their central bank.
“This is limiting the extent of their operations and being able to determine a lot of things that concerns insurance system.”
The commissioner said there has, however, been a lot of expansion within the African markets.
” With respect to conducts and nature of insurance, there has been some departures in certain areas in the past 50 years. In terms of operations, the methodology for operating is totally different from what we have now.
“We have witnessed changes of modernisation, technological advancement, human capital developments and attitudes among operators and regulators across the continent.
“In terms of product affordability, a lot of products that were hitherto locked up by virtue of the needs of the consumers have been separated and created for in terms of operations,’’ he added.
