By Tony Obiechina, Abuja
The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed has charged the Board and Management of National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) to come up with ways of increasing its revenue through the use of technology and portal, in particular.
The Minister gave the charge at NAICOM Headquarters, Abuja while commissioning the Commission’s Portal.
While commending NAICOM Management for completing the Portal and leveraging on technology the Minister urged the Commission “to ensure the Portal was connected to other government Databases like the National Identity Management Commission, (NIMC), National Identification Number (NIN) Database, Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) Passport Database, Nigeria Integrated Customs Information System, FRSC’s National Vehicle Identification System, the National Vehicle Registry, State Licensing Databases among others in order to provide value added services to all insurance industry stakeholders and enhance revenue generation’’.
Mrs. Ahmed further charged the Management to ensure the NAICOM Portal served as the central database and sole repository of all insurance data connected to government database in the country lamenting that ‘’the unsatisfactory response to settlement of claims by underwriters had greatly contributed to the prevailing poor public perception and lack of trust and confidence in the insurance industry”.
She therefore admonished the Commission to ‘put in place mechanisms to ensure insurance companies met their obligations to policy holders by paying promptly’.
The Minister hoped that the commissioning of the Portal will herald the digital transformation of the insurance industry with the attendant effect of increased penetration and reduction of fake insurance policies, among others.