The National Insurance Commission (NAICOM), has automated insurance industry activities with the unveiling of a new platform to deepen the insurance market and increase the penetration.
NAICOM had in July 2009, embarked on a comprehensive computerization effort tagged ‘project e-regulation’ which was meant to transform its operational procedures and the conduct of its regulatory responsibilities by providing a robust, world class ICT Infrastructure to help implement automated business processes internally and for industry wide supervision via an integrated platform.
Prior to this development, the processing of applications required that applicants physically drop off their applications at the Commission with the attendant challenges of delays in processing times, wasted manpower hours due to back-and-forth in application processing as well as ineffective application tracking system.
Speaking at the unveiling of the new platform in Abuja, Sunday Thomas, Commissioner for Insurance, said “with the completion of the portal there will be process efficiency and faster processing time as applications and supporting documents are submitted online, applicant’s account is updated with the status of the application as it progresses and there is effective Real-time communication between NAICOM and the applicant.
“The Portal also provides a Platform for interconnectivity by all industry stakeholders to support real-time aggregation of data on policies at the time of underwriting and policy issuance. Each policy will be issued with a unique policy identification that will be associated with the policy for the lifetime of the policy.
“The Portal is presently made up of four systems which include, The Policy System that captures all insurance policies issued in Nigeria online real time via Application Programming Interface (APIs).
“This helps to generate a unique policy identification number for all issued policies necessary to ensure fidelity and validity of all policies in the country and manages information on all insurance policies and premiums and also enables insurance customers and third-party entities such as Law Enforcement Agencies to query and validate insurance policies.
“Also, with the Licensing System, the Portal automates the core business processes of Registration/Renewal of Licenses, New Products, AIP no objection & Attestation approvals at NAICOM.
“All of these application processes will proceed digitally from the application stage where all supporting documents are provided, to the review stage, the approval stage and license generation where applicable.
Thomas appreciated the African Reinsurance Corporation (African Re) for its funding of this critical software that would improve efficiency and effectiveness in supervisory and regulatory oversight of the Nigerian Insurance Industry.
“Indeed, this is a welcome development and further demonstration of commitment by development partners to the transformation of the Nigerian economy and the change agenda of the current administration,” he said.
The Commissioner expected that the challenges of poor insurance penetration, public trust and confidence in insurance, and inadequate real time statistical data of the insurance industry will be resolved through the efficient deployment of the portal.
“Also the direct interface with the Industry provided by the portal will ensure greater accountability and transparency while the digital platform will provide a single point of Contact between NAICOM and the Insurance Industry.
“In addition it facilitates the Complaints Management System. This is a customized solution designed to help the Commission manage complaints and handle issues seamlessly as well as ensure that insurance companies are performing highly and clients are serviced adequately.
“The system is also designed to integrate directly with NAICOM existing database, utilizing existing records of customers and insurance companies; it incorporates multiple channels for initiation of complaints including Social media applications (Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter),Direct action on the complaint portal, Walk-in complainants, Regular media, Emails &SMS (Short Code)and Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD).
“The Portal also ensures Regulatory Returns and Financial Analysis,” he added
