BY NGOZI ONYEAKUSI

Former President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Dr Akinwumi Adesina, has called for greater transparency in Nigeria’s insurance industry, urging the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) to introduce an annual public accountability report to track insurers’ claims settlement, corporate governance and financial performance.

Adesina said the proposed report would provide Nigerians with clearer information on how insurance companies fulfil their obligations to policyholders, particularly in claims settlement and customer service.

The former AfDB president who spoke in a forum in Lagos argued that the industry could not expect Nigerians to develop confidence in insurance without opening its operations to greater public scrutiny.

He proposed that the annual report should disclose claims received and settled by individual companies, outstanding claims, average settlement periods, customer complaints, regulatory compliance, financial soundness and corporate governance standards.

According to him, such disclosures would strengthen accountability and enable policyholders to make better-informed decisions when purchasing insurance products.

Adesina stressed that the credibility of an insurance company should be measured by its ability to honour legitimate claims rather than the volume of premiums collected.
He urged insurance boards to take greater responsibility for claims performance, customer complaints and management accountability, insisting that policyholders deserved quality service in return for the premiums they paid.

The call comes as Nigeria’s insurance industry emerges from a major recapitalisation exercise under the Nigerian Insurance Industry Reform Act 2025, which was designed to strengthen the financial capacity of operators and improve their ability to underwrite larger risks.

However, Adesina cautioned that increased capital alone would not guarantee institutional strength or restore public confidence.

He maintained that recapitalisation must be accompanied by effective corporate governance, disciplined underwriting, adequate technical reserves, sound risk management and stronger reinsurance arrangements.

He also urged NAICOM to deepen risk-based supervision and hold insurance companies accountable for measurable performance.
Beyond regulatory compliance, Adesina called on insurers to expand their presence in agriculture, infrastructure, manufacturing, energy, transportation, healthcare and housing, noting that insurance has a critical role in protecting investments and supporting economic growth.

He further advocated stronger domestic reinsurance capacity to enable Nigerian institutions to retain and prudently manage a greater proportion of risks within the country.

Adesina welcomed NAICOM’s 2031 targets of raising insurance penetration to 10 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), extending active insurance coverage to 25 million Nigerians and developing 6,000 certified insurance professionals.

He, however, stressed that achieving the targets would require measurable commitments from regulators, professional institutions and insurance operators.

He proposed an industry performance scorecard, supported by quarterly monitoring and periodic independent assessments, to measure progress in claims settlement, governance, insurance coverage and technology adoption.

Adesina said the industry’s future should be judged by the protection it delivers to policyholders and the confidence it inspires among Nigerians, rather than announcements about capital raised or premiums collected.

He urged insurance operators to place policyholder protection at the centre of their business strategies, stressing that public trust would remain difficult to achieve without transparency and accountability.