Insurance business is not done in isolation—-Naicom

NAICOM, Nigeria is ready and available to assist any member state in developing their RBS frame work, RBS manual and for knowledge sharing. This assertion was made by the Chairman college of Insurance supervisors of the West African Monetary Zone Mr. Agbola Pius at the second meeting of the college hosted by Nigeria. Mr. Agbola in his address to delegates said “Insurance business evolved through the desire of entrepreneur to curtail the negative effects of the risk materialising. Hence, that is why Insurance is regarded as a risk transfer mechanism. A business that exist to ensure the survival of other businesses. The entrepreneur who establishes an Insurance business or Company may choose to stay small, serving the local markets. Alternatively, the companies may not have the options to stay small as there are so many other factors that could make each company to expand and go beyond the shores of the jurisdictions and these factors can be categorised into; push or pull factors.

Push factors include; “risk diversification, declining opportunities in the home jurisdiction, and the need for consolidations, etc. Pull factors he said include the need to follow their clients abroad which is common in the oil and gas sector, expected benefits (i.e. large profit margin); available unutilised potentials, etc. The special nature of Insurance and the fact that it is a business in the financial sector entails that it is highly regulated in the jurisdiction of operation. As the business expends beyond the jurisdiction of establishment or operation, the need for bi-regional or multi-regional co-operation and/or understanding grew. Hence, the need for this regional integration called College of Insurance Supervisors of the West African Monetary Zone. The College is also established to Complement and implement the ideas, Projects and directives of the parent body – WAISA.

The scope for Inter-regional (international co-operation is very wide. And since this is not a paper presentation, I do not need to go into this. More importantly, the mandates of the college is one of the presentations scheduled for this program to be handled by a very competent officer of National Insurance Commission of Nigeria, Mr. Jankara Usman, Assistant Director (Corporate Strategy, and Special Duty). I have gone through the program scheduled for the College 2nd Meeting, and I can confirm that it is very rich in contents. The starting point of any Group is a better understanding of their mandate which is the first presentation of this Meeting. The various templates we planned to develop – template for presenting countries report, template for implementation of regulatory standard and presentation of Governors’ Convergence Council directives and template for Financial Stability Report are Permanent documents that require joint discussion, agreement and understanding.

“The last paper for this Meeting which is scheduled for the 3rd day is the sharing of Nigeria’s experience on Risk Based Approach of Onsite Examination. I am very sure that the member states will have some take – away from the presentation. The hosting of the Regional RBS by NAICOM and Toronto Centre, Canada in February, 2022 has enriched our understanding of the Risk Based Supervision and / or Risk Based Capital. Nigeria would be glad to share the RBS Framework for Insurers and Reinsurers in Nigeria with member states. I wish to assure you that NAICOM, Nigeria is ready and available to assist any member state in developing their RBS frame work, RBS manual and for knowledge sharing.I want to sincerely welcome all the delegates and other participants to this 2ndmeeting of the college.

So many activities have been programmed for this 2nd meeting of the college as stated in the previous paragraph which would be of great benefits to us all and therefore let us make the best use of it. However, it is good to inform you that Abuja is a cool and beautiful city, thus you should make time to relax and move round for the maximum use of your time and money”.