The House of Representatives, on Tuesday, directed all management of all insurance companies doing business with Federal Government to submit documentary evidence of their solvency level and investments of Group Life Insurance premium insured through the office of the Head of Service of the Federation.
Chairman, House Committee on Insurance and Actuarial Matters, Hon. Darlington Nwokocha, issued the directive during the 2-day of the ongoing investigative hearing into the Group Life insurance scheme handled by Great Nigeria Assurance Plc and others.
In the same vein, the Committee threatened to issue a warrant of arrest against the Chief Executive Officer of Great Nigeria Assurance Plc, Mrs. Osipitan, if she fails to honour the second invitation sent by the Committee.
Representatives of Great Nigeria Assurance Plc, who appeared before the Committee, had earlier informed that the CEO was indisposed as a result of ill-health.
In a swift reaction to the absence of the CEO of Great Nigeria Assurance, Hon. Nwokocha disclosed that the Committee is expected to screen 812 ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) and all the insurance companies engaged by the office of the Head of Service of the Federation appointed to handle Group Life Insurance for federal workers as well as military and Paramilitary agencies.
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He said: “We have over one thousand and something petitions across the entire nation sent to us bordering on issues of national importance. Madam, you are aware that we have military men out there fighting it course, policemen out there fighting our course of protecting us.
“We have people that work in the prison so that prisoners will not escape and justice procedure will be handled accordingly. We have people in the civil service to make sure that the necessary jobs that we need to do is being carried out to have a better country.
“Madam, the essence of doing this is to make sure that when they are working, at the end of the day their future will be protected at the end of the day. And we can only achieve that for instance, today we have very big problem in our hands, the Boko Haram issue. Our men are fighting out there, the police people are helping out there and knowing fully well that, somebody being enrolled into the Army or Police Force is not an employment incentive.
“First of all, we should have the passion to protect the country and the motivation from the country to make sure that you put in your best. And the only way to ensure that motivation is to protect the persons future or life after death of the people that would succeed him. And this has happened over time.
“Most of these people, from the petitions we have, are not being protected and I assure you that over N200 billion has just filtered into the air all in the name of insurance that they are protected while our people are not being protected accordingly from the petitions suspected to be happening around. That is just on the Group Life only.
“On the other areas, trillions of naira is filtered, be it NNPC, CBN, Niger Delta Power Holding Company and so many others we have the petitions here,” Hon. Nwokocha stressed.
The lawmakers also frowned at the level of infraction on the issuance of ‘proposal form’ and ‘disclosure warrant’ which most of the insurance companies did not comply with.
Hon. Nwokocha, who expressed displeasure over the flagrant disregard for the provisions of extant insurance laws and NAICOM operational guidelines, explained that: “After this session, we are going into forensic audit of all the agencies and insurance companies that do business with our government.
“So we are going to hold it that you said that you are 100 per cent compliant, both your investment and your solvency limits.
While responding to the questions from the lawmakers, Managing Director of WAPPIC Life insurance Nig Limited, Mr Adenrele Koko, affirmed that the company was 100 per cent compliant.
To this end, the Chairman requested for copies of the company’s bank statements of all the claims paid from 2014 to date, the documents showing the notification from the agencies one after another, then the unpaid claims, total premium paid and acknowledgement copies.
“I know you know that the constitution frowns clearly against holding back claims or you are not aware of that?” the Chairman asked.
While responding to the unclaimed claims, Koko noted that the sum of N72 million claim is still outstanding because “we have not received documentation from them, despite sending a notification for 2017 and 2018.”
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