By Modestus Anaesoronye
Twenty-two of the 59 insurance companies that have received the National Insurance Commission’s (NAICOM’s) approval for their 2013 financial accounts have generated about N175bn premium, with Leadway Assurance, Custodian & Allied Insurance and Aiico Insurance leading the pack. While another 20 insurance companies were at different levels of getting approval having submitted their accounts, 17 others were yet to submit as at July 25, 2014, even as they have run behind deadline of June 30 given by the industry regulator for submission of annual returns to NAICOM.
Analysis of the figures released by NAICOM shows that for the financial year ended December 31, 2013 Leadway recorded a premium income of N41.75bn, Custodian & Allied N22.95bn and AIICO Insurance N22.83bn.
Others are Continental Reinsurance N13.85bn, Mansard Insurance N13.58bn, Niger Insurance N10.44bn, Royal Exchange N8.87bn and Sovereign Trust Insurance N8.67bn.
For the second quarter 2014, that analysis shows that 10 out of the 59 underwriting firms have submitted their second quarter financial to the Commission.
It reveals that ARM (Crystalife) Life Insurance posted N585.61m in the; Equity Assurance N1.5bn; Fin Insurance N222.45m; Guinea Insurance; N294.85 million; KBL (PHB) Insurance N799.81m and Linkage Assurance N1.7bn.
Others are Mutual Benefit Assurance N4.37bn; Old Mutual Nigeria Life Assurance N594.60m; Wapic Life Assurance N372.55m and Wapic Insurance N1.7bn.
For the 17 companies that were yet to submit their annual returns on or before the deadline of June 30, they would be expected to pay N5,000 fine to the National Insurance Commission for each day that passes until they submit.
The Accounting Technical Committee (ATC) of the Nigerian Insurers Association (NIA) recently offered steps that could enable insurance companies meet the deadline for the submission of their accounts to the regulator. The 10-point recommendation which was stated in the NIA Annual Report is coming at a time when most operators are struggling to meet the deadline for submission of annual returns to the industry regulators.
The committee called on operators to institute periodic audit, which should be done quarterly or bi-annually to reduce the stress encountered in preparing for the end of year audit.
They also called for investment on computer software/hardware and integration of all branches, stressing that the software should be International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) complaint.
Other steps are that companies should carry out human capital development to address knowledge gap; documentation process should be computerised by acquiring robust software for data capture; there should be early closure of financial transaction with year-end cutoff date to facilitate timely reconciliation and production of annual accounts; aligning financial year of subsidiaries with parent company; work towards achieving timeline for submission of financial statements; engage the same auditing firm for their local and foreign subsidiaries and more qualified personnel should be deployed to the financial reporting process.
Source BusinessDay
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