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Senate kills insurance brokerage bill

By on March 11, 2015

Attempts to seek legal backing for insurance brokerage and accord professional status to the practitioners were frustrated by the Senate on Monday at a public hearing organised by its Committee on Banking, Insurance and other Financial Institutions.

A bill entitled: ‘The Nigerian Council of Registered Insurance Brokers Act, 2003 (repeal and re-enactment) Bill 2015’ was rejected by the committee based on the advice of stakeholders.

Stakeholders at the public hearing insisted that the bill, if passed into law, would be inimical to the growth of the insurance industry.

For instance, the Chairman, Insurance Industry Law Review Committee, who is also a former President of the Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria, Prof. Joe Irukwu, kicked against certain aspects of the bill.

He argued that some aspects of the proposed bill were unconventional and detrimental to the insurance industry, especially in the context of the universal and settled principles of insurance regulation.

Irukwu explained that the National Insurance Commission was empowered to supervise and regulate the industry.

He described the Nigerian Council of Registered Insurance Brokers as a trade association existing just to promote the interest of its members.

He, therefore, said that the NCRIB, under the proposed legislation, should not double as a practitioner and a regulator.

“The bill, if enacted into law, will be in conflict with the provisions of Act 22 of 1993, which gives legal powers to the Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria,” Irukwu said.

The CIIN, according to him, is the body charged with the general duty of determining the standards of knowledge and skill to be attained by persons seeking to become registered insurance professional in Nigeria.

This, he said, included the business of insurance brokerage.

Irukwu said, “Furthermore, if the bill is passed as proposed, it will compromise standards and make the discipline of insurance practitioners inimical to the future growth of the industry.

“Insurance is a key factor in our financial services industry and should not be polarised at a time when it should be strengthened for greater efficiency. The bill, if passed into law as proposed, will not help to advance the growth and development of the industry.

“The National Insurance Commission is the body statutorily empowered to supervise and regulate the whole of the insurance industry in Nigeria in the interest of the public, whereas the Nigerian Council of Registered Insurance Brokers is a trade association established to promote the interests of its members.

“The NCRIB cannot be practitioners and at the same time be the regulators. The bill as proposed is fundamentally flawed as it seeks to take away the statutory powers and responsibility of NAICOM as regulators and confer on NCRIB the power to regulate itself.

“The attention of this honourable Senate is hereby drawn to other best practice jurisdictions where the consolidation of regulatory and practice laws is now being used to achieve regulatory effectiveness.”

The Deputy President, NCRIB, Mr. Emmanuel Okunoren, and the Commissioner for Insurance, Mr. Fola Daniel, also kicked against the bill on the ground that it would hinder the growth of the industry.

Okunoren noted that the over 600-member institutions of the NCRIB had unanimously agreed at its last Annual General Meeting that the contents of the bill were not in the interest of the insurance industry and the general public.

 

[Punch]