Commissioner for Insurance and Chief Executive of the National Insurance Commission, Mr. Mohammed Kari has tasked insurance professionals on upholding ethics of the profession in their daily practices.
Kari said this while speaking during the on-going 2015 insurance professionals forum with the theme, “The Nigerian Business Environment, Implications for insurance industry, in Abeokuta, Ogun State.
He urged insurance brokers to have zero tolerance for unethical vices. He also revealed that the federal government spent about N2 billion on insurance out of N20 billion budgeted in 2014.
He said “The challenges of huge competence deficit, corruption, low level of innovation, over-dependence on the oil sector leaves all asunder to phantom the best soluble buyouts and how to harness the opportunities inherent therein.
“In consequence of the effect of uncontrollable changes in the macroeconomic environments affecting our businesses, organisations and entities either passively or negatively, we are therefore implored to map-out adaptive strategies and identify the opportunities inherent in the ‘change’. As far as innovation is concerned, we need to improve the content and quality of our services. In addition to our quest for innovation, changes in companies business model must be exploited. The earlier we realised that the music has changed and thus the need to adjust our dancing steps, the better for us all.
“We have seen unbridled, unsustainable and technical unsound rates being offered by supposedly insurance professionals more out of the need to meet a target than to properly underwrite. Professional brokers takes business from contraptions called ‘sub-agents’ who by the way are not registered by anyone. Premiums are loaded, discounted, retained or returned with impunity market indiscipline among practitioners, boards and management conflicts may degenerate to threatening the stability of some of our companies.
“The implication of such practices on the insurance industry in this new Nigerian business environment is the gradual diminution of our professional relevance as a veritable shield for the financial sector of the economy. We must all have zero tolerance for these unethical vices. Most of the actions of our professionals today are actually criminal.”