Press release by NAICOM

PRESS RELEASE

Insurers pay N1.22b claims through NAICOM intervention

The National Insurance Commission (NAICOM), through its Complaints Bureau, facilitated the settlement of claims by Insurance Companies to the tune of N1,220,645,790.09 in the first half of this year. This involved a total number of 52 cases concluded by the Bureau during the period.

In the period under review, the Complaints Bureau dealt with a total number of 349 cases and held four adjudication meetings. Out of this figure, 86 of them were fresh complaints while the remaining (263) are existing/ongoing cases.

The outstanding claims are currently receiving the attention of the Commission, with a view of achieving a quick resolution to the satisfaction of all stakeholders, particularly, members of the insuring public.

 The resort to the Bureau for settlement of claims disputes by the insuring public is an indication of the level of awareness of this channel of dispute resolution in the Commission.

Insurance companies have been made to accept the fact that it is no longer business as usual as their responses and compliance with the Commission’s directives had witnessed an improvement compared to previous periods. Consequently, not less than 85 per cent of the insurance institutions responded to queries or directives issued to them for claim settlement during the period.  Majority of the 15 per cent residual are largely claims already before courts of competent jurisdiction and therefore prejudicial for the Commission to intervene.

The Complaints received this year were mainly those involving non settlement of claims on Motor Insurances, Marine, Life, Bond Issues and Pension matters. The Complaints were received from individual policy holders, beneficiaries, government agencies, SERVICOM, Legal Aid Council and Public Complaints Commission.

It will be recalled that as part of the Commission’s commitment to consumers’ education and value-added performance by the insurance industry, the Commission has been sponsoring a programme – Insurance & Claims – on the network programme of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) every Saturday by 10.30am.

Breakdown of Complaints Resolved:

Period	No Of Complaints	Estimated Value Of Claims	Type Of Complaint	Mode Of Resolving Complaint	No. Of Settled Cases	No. Of O/S Cases	Amt Of Settled Claim
1ST QTR 2012	33	---	Life: 8 Non-Life: 25	Correspondence	17	16	617,802,323.88
2ND QTR 2012	53	---	Life:15 Mostly Surrender Values Non-Life: 31	Correspondence	35	18	602, 843,469.02
				TOTAL			N1, 220,645,790.09