NAICOM’S darling leadership

2025 was a defining year for the insurance industry. Mind filters revealed mixed patterns—both encouraging and cautionary. In response, NAICOM, as the industry’s armour, rose to the challenge with remarkable tenacity, value-driven impact, and venturesome leadership. It acted constructively and courageously, taking decisive steps at a critical moment.

Through its innovative guidance, the Federal Government of Nigeria enacted the Nigerian Insurance Industry Reform Act (NIIRA), 2025. NIIRA represents a strong positioning and value ladder, firmly anchored in the wisdom of securing a stronger foundation for insurance within Nigeria’s financial sector.

The Act is set to advance the Nigerian insurance industry through strategic alignment that will generate clear and desirable outcomes. It will deliver critical developmental milestones while reshaping both internal and external structures and systems. Importantly, it will address fast-evolving risks within our volatile economy, accommodate emerging trends and investment dynamics, and respond to inflationary pressures that significantly increased claims payments and reshaped benefit structures in 2025.

The critical question is how NIIRA will gain traction and practitioners will respond appropriately. The focus will shift to the effective implementation of these instituted reforms and policy changes, alongside deliberate engagements with key drivers of performance. Practitioners will actively manage the variables of risks, capital, pricing, investments, and customer expectations through disciplined strategy execution and robust business process re-engineering to sustain growth and resilience.

However, one strategic word has clearly emerged: judgement—the disciplined faculty to act boldly, guided by wisdom and determination. Insurance leadership must shift gears, continuously revise and adapt, and engage in structured collaboration with seriousness of purpose that delivers measurable and enduring results. This demands strong inner focus, both cognitive and empathetic. Leaders must think clearly while tuning up to stakeholder realities.

Central to this approach is the deliberate institutionalisation of the sustainable and continuous RPA loop of strategic thinking: we must appropriately recognise emerging realities, prioritise critical imperatives, and Act decisively, while adapting to the consequential patterns that follow.

Insurance must take the driver’s seat in shaping the Nigerian financial sector, through deliberate deployment of its unique financial models and risk-transfer vehicles. The industry must play genuine and substantial role in strengthening the nation’s economic health by delivering stability, resilience, and sustainable growth.

The Nigerian insurance industry possesses the depth of skilled knowledge workers, collaborative teams, and established networks required for transformational impact. The imperative now is to forge stronger connections across the industry, jointly remove internal and structural obstacles. We must execute with collective discipline and effectiveness.

The industry must become untethered—clearly articulating and confidently projecting its unique and authentic mission and goals while pushing decisively in the same strategic direction. We are anchored in the differentiating values that have sustained us progressively for decades. The industry can obviously reinforce its relevance, resilience, and long-term sustainability.

2026 is the transformational year for the Nigerian insurance industry with NIIRA—a landmark regulatory shift. Its features include aggressive market expansion, increased capital inflows, and technology-driven penetration that will significantly broaden reach, deepen inclusion, and enhance industry performance.

Let us quickly do a brief reflection.

Nigeria’s insurance regulatory reforms have undergone significant changes over the years.

Here’s a breakdown of the key reforms:

Early Reforms

-Insurance Companies Act (1961): Established the office of the Registrar of Insurance and set minimum capital requirements for insurance companies.

-Insurance (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act (1964): Amended the 1961 Act to address emerging issues.

-National Insurance Supervisory Board (NISB) (1991): Established to regulate and supervise the insurance industry.

Recent Reforms

-National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) Act (1997): Established NAICOM as the regulatory body for the insurance industry.

-Insurance Act (2003): Introduced stricter capital requirements, solvency margins, and corporate governance guidelines.

-Nigerian Insurance Industry Reform Act (NIIRA) (2025): A comprehensive overhaul of the insurance regulatory framework.

The Nigerian Insurance Industry Reform Act (NIIRA) 2025 is expected to have a significant impact on the insurance sector in Nigeria. Here are some key implications:

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Key Impacts

-Increased Capital Requirements: Insurers must meet higher capital thresholds, ranging from ₦10 billion for life insurance to ₦35 billion for reinsurance, to ensure financial stability.

-Risk-Based Capital Framework: Insurers will calculate capital based on specific risks, promoting prudent underwriting and reducing reckless risk-taking.

-Improved Governance: Stricter corporate governance rules and transparency requirements will enhance accountability and trust.

-Consumer Protection: Mandatory claims settlement timelines and a Policyholders’ Protection Fund will safeguard policyholders’ interests.

-Digitalization: The Act promotes digitalization, improving access and efficiency in the insurance market

Industry Implications

-Consolidation: Weaker insurers may merge or exit, leading to industry consolidation.

-Foreign Investment: Higher capital requirements and improved governance may attract foreign investors.

-Innovation: The Act encourages innovation, with a regulatory sandbox for testing new products

It is worthy of note that Segun Omosehin, Chief Executive of NAICOM, seamlessly blends deep technical insurance expertise with marketing ingenuity. A visionary strategist and value-delivering technocrat. He is the one championing NIIRA as a practical and innovative framework that leverages community psychology and ecological perspective to deepen insurance awareness and adoption. As I said earlier, NIIRA will position the insurance industry as Nigeria’s financial first responder—enhancing individual livelihoods while strengthening the resilience and robustness of the national economy.

On NIIRA, he says, “It’s a modern regulation that allows the sector to be better regulated in terms of having principles as the basis of regulation opposed to the role-based system which was more prescriptive.

“It will boost investors’ confidence in insurance, promote penetration, quicker claim settlement, more stability, better solvency. Local operations, with larger insurance tickets, will retain more locally enhanced capacity. There will be better enforcement of compulsory insurances. Digital access will be enhanced. It will promote financial inclusion, encourage microinsurance and takaful.

“More people will enjoy the benefits of insurance because there will be confidence for policy holders.”