NCRIB Boss Applauds Insurance Regulators Over Strong Empowerment Laws

The president of the Nigerian Council of Registered Insurance Brokers, NCRIB, Ekeoma Ezeibe, has applauded the Nigeria Insurance Industry Reform Act, NIIRA, for restoring the confidence of Nigerians in the country’s insurance business.

She gave the acknowledgement while addressing newsmen on the sideline of the NCRIB National Insurance Brokers Conference and Exhibition, organised to bring together insurance practitioners, government representatives, regulators, investors and other stakeholders to examine the role of insurance in infrastructure financing and national development.

“What next is the fact that we now have 50 strong insurance and reinsurance companies, and it is hoped that we will have more retention capacity of insurance businesses within our country than we would reinsure overseas. And so NIIRA, by doing this, has given credence to what we call a local content law, you know, so that we can empower local companies much more than the outsiders.

“That's what NIIRA has done. NIIRA has done this in order to restore the confidence of the consumers so that they can rest assured that their businesses are placed with insurance companies of not just repute, but with insurance companies that will answer to that policy when claims occur.

“And I would like at this point to give immense credit to our regulator on behalf of the Nigerian Council of Registered Insurance Brokers and our sectoral regulator being the National Insurance Commission about the most responsible way they carried out the duties, the duties, legal duties assigned to them by the Nigerian Insurance Industrial Reform Act 2025,” she noted.

Ezeibe stated further that the strengthened enactment has created a better operating atmosphere for insurance companies because they can now confidently engage insurance consumers and create a wider safety net for them to include the undeserved.

According to her, “…for the brokers, we are happy and excited that you know, when we engage our consumers, we confidently engage them.”

The NCRIB president disclosed that plans have reached an advanced stage to ensure that insurance is driven by technology, which she described as the key. The step, she noted, will help the industry devolve its business from being an elitist affair as it is wrongly assumed.  

“And it is something that we already, as members of the Nigerian insurance industry, know already that we have that responsibility to ensure that insurance is not just for the elite.

“…if you look at certain sections of the Nigerian Insurance Industrial Reform Act, you will see that as a matter of law, insurance institutions are required to operate in a digital manner because technology is the key,” she pointed out.

Ezeibe noted further that NCRIB understands well the task and responsibility ahead hence it is ready to deploy its six area committees, comprising Lagos Area Committee, Western, Abuja, Northern, Southern and Eastern Area Committees, to mop up the underserved in all-inclusive manner such that the mechanics and petty traders can also buy insurance policies with the little resources at their disposal.

“…the Nigerian Insurance, for the Nigerian Council of Registered Insurance Brokers, the NCRIB, we understand fully well that it is our responsibility, using our six area committees of Lagos Area Committee, Western Area Committee, Abuja Area Committee, Northern Area Committee, South-South Area Committee, and the Eastern Area Committee, six of them spread across Nigeria, using them to reach the underserved.

“The NCRIB is going to very soon come out with a robust app that we will use to permeate the nooks and crannies of Nigeria, such that even mechanics, and petty traders, anyone can actually, with the use of their telephones, be able to buy a policy. They should buy a policy that will cause them as low as 200 Naira. That's what micro-insurance is all about. They should be confident that when they buy insurance, their petty trading is destroyed, either by fire, by theft, or whatever means, they should rest assured that insurance will come to their aid and restore their businesses, such that within a few days, they are back in trade.”

She affirmed that the NCRIB will continue to include the underserved because it is a duty it owes itself, the nation and the MSMEs to make available the dividends of insurance in a small scale which she said NCRIB had already launched with the Abia State insurance penetration scheme.

According to her, the scheme will be spread to other areas as quickly as the Abia state example is completed..

“We will continue to do this because we owe our nation responsibility. We owe ourselves responsibility. We owe those MSMEs an obligation for them to also receive and enjoy the dividends of insurance on a small scale,” she assured.

Ezeibe spoke on the theme of the conference-Insurance, Infrastructure Financing and National Development Agenda, stressing that it is essentially based on the need to understand the roles of brokers and where they come to play. The need, she emphasised, necessitated the call for dialogue, designed to situate their responsibility as insurance advisor to the consumers.

“Where do we come in as insurance brokers? What is our role?  And that is the reason we set up this platform. Setting up this platform for us to dialogue is first and foremost our responsibility as the insurance advisors to the consumers. So we have brought this platform at this conference so that we can have a dialogue.

“We, meaning insurance operators, can dialogue with the government, with the public sector. How can infrastructure be financed? And how can insurance come in to protect the financing such that those who are responsible to finance these infrastructural developments will feel comfortable enough that there is adequate insurance protection in place? This is the discussion. This is the meat of our conference.”

According to her, the roles also involve creating awareness by making the discussion happen by bringing all stakeholders together to agree on the way forward in terms of how to promptly operationalise policy terms.

“So first and foremost, it’s about creating awareness as insurance brokers. Secondly, making the discussion happen and bringing together all the stakeholders so that we can then agree on how this will happen. And most importantly, putting action into words.

“Because whatever we come out with would then mean that there will be placement of insurance policies, placement that insurance brokers will play an active role in advising the policyholders on the best outcome for them. But more importantly, when those policies are bought, what happens when a claim occurs? An insurance broker that will be there as a true professional is to ensure that claims are not only paid, they're paid promptly.”

For the purpose, she disclosed that NCRIB has gathered some of the best brains in the industry, including a former commissioner for insurance, His Royal Highness, the Waziri Bauchi, Haji Mohammed Kare. Other speakers are the Executive Director, Operations, Infrastructure Bank, Mrs Barbara Isilin; chairman of the Nigerian Insurance Association, Mrs. Ebele Chukwuachukwu, and Deputy Commissioner, Insurance Technical, the Nigerian National Insurance Commission, Dr. Usman Jankara.

While the Waziri Bauchi will speak on the main theme, Mrs. Isilin will speak from the financier’s point of view. Respectively, Mrs. Chukwuachukwu and Dr. Jankara will speak from an insurance and regulator’s perspectives.