Following the battle to check fraudulent claims ignited by the current economic recession in the country, the Managing Director, Wapic Insurance Plc. Yinka Adekoya, has assured that the introduction of Insurance Industry Database (NIID) remained a vital solution to the problem.

Adekoya stated that if all insurance firms should utilise the platform effectively and lodge their claims on it, it would help in tracing fraudsters.

“I think the industry has to sit back and think of what can be done. You can’t eliminate fraudulent claims because people are fraudulent in nature, and keep on looking for means of making their dreams a reality, so the industry should look back and also trust one another, because if we have a data that can be relied on, it will be easy.

“For instance, the NIID platform. Because you have more fraudulent claims in motor than any other business, if the NIID platform is properly utilised by the industry, and we lodge all our claims on it, actually it will be very easy to trace people making multiple claims with various insurance companies.

“So I would just urge my colleagues that we utilise that platform extensively to ensure we catch up with these fraudsters,” she assured.

She admitted the prediction that Nigeria would exit recession but lamented that insurance industry was still facing the challenges of high claims occasioned by foreign exchange crisis.

“Well if Nigeria as a nation comes out of recession, there is no doubt that the insurance industry will not come out as wcomes

“What really happened in 2016 was an aberration. Ordinarily, Nigeria has no business being in recession and unfortunately we are in recession.
“However, government started by looking for a lasting resolution to what is happening in the Niger Deltatobelieving that because we didn’t sell our oil, we did not have enough foreign exchange.

“Now that situation has improved and government has found lasting solution to what is happening in the Niger Delta and we have enough foreign exchange, that is why the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) assured that Nigeria will come out of recession soon.

“When the country is out of the recession, there will be more funds for the industry, and it has actually started showing, if you look at key works of most insurance companies, you would see that their performance is higher that what was obtainable in 2016.

“I have no doubt that the industry will come ouI of recession. But the only problem we may not be able to resolve immediately is the cost of claims, because the cost of claim has become very high because of exchange rate issue.

“We, as an importing nation, when you import all the time, definitely the cost of claims will go up, but, unfortunately, the premium income is not going up as the cost of claims is,” she said.