Determined to address the menace of unwholesome/unhealthy practices in the Nigerian insurance industry, the industry’s consolidated bill presently undergoing processes for passage into Act, has spelt out various sanctions for various infractions against defaulters in a bid to entrench good corporate governance and professionalism.
The Bill stated that a person who transacts any insurance business without being licenced for that purpose, commits an offence and is liable on conviction, in the case of – a company, firm or other combination of persons, each principal officer of the company, firm or other combination of persons responsible to a fine of N5,000,000.00 or to imprisonment for a term of two years; or an individual, to a fine of N1,000,000.00 or to imprisonment for a term of two years.
The bill noted that a person who transacts business as an insurance agent without having been licenced, commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding N250,000.00 or to a term of imprisonment not exceeding 6 months or to both fine and imprisonment.
“In addition to subsection (10) of this section, the court may make an order requiring the person to refund any sums collected by him, while so transacting the business, to the rightful owners or other entitled persons,” it said.
The Director-General of the Nigerian Insurers Association (NIA), Mrs Yetunde Ilori, said the association had intensified awareness on the menace of fake insurance, adding that the association had also continued to educate insurance companies on the need for them to upload their sold motor policies on the Nigerian a Insurance a Industry Database (NIID).
She noted that about 2.5 million vehicle insurance policies have been uploaded on the NIID, stressing that the NIID platform remains one of the best ways to curb fake motor insurance policy, adding that to help vehicle owners to easily verify the genuineness of their policies, the insurance industry introduced the Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) code 56511#.
According to her, awareness on usage of USSD code 56511# is really gaining more ground as people daily rely on it to settle issues bothering on genuineness of their policies.
Former Chairman of the NIA, Tope Smart, said the code would help bring insurance closer to the people and ultimately eliminate fake insurance certificates in the market.
He posited that in 2010 the association took a major step towards eliminating fake insurance certificates in the market through the inception of the Nigerian Insurance Industry Database (NIID), stressing that the database went live in 2011 and insurance policies obtained by motorists could be checked real time online on the internet and through dedicated hand held devices.
He stated that the objective of the NIID is to serve as an authentic database of the Nigerian insurance industry data providing qualitative statistics/analysis of the industry data! as well as a vehicle for easy verification of genuine insurance certificates by all stakeholders and to reduce incidences of fraudulent insurance transactions especially for motor and marine policies.
