The Insurance Consumers Association of Nigeria has called for the reversal of policy directive on the increase of third-party motor insurance premium by 200 per cent.
The National Coordinator of the association, Yemi Soladoye, made the demand in a letter addressed to the National Insurance Commission, which was made available to the News Agency of Nigeria on Monday in Abuja.
He said:” We, the Insurance Consumers Association of Nigeria, an affiliate of the Federal Competition and Consumers Protection Commission of Nigeria, once again introduce ourselves to you as an organisation established in 2010 with objectives to speak for the aggrieved Nigerians on insurance Matters.
“We hereby demand that the directive be reversed as it amounts to a deliberate breach of the fundamental principle of the utmost good faith and other decent regulatory principles that guide Insurance practice on your part.
“Our demand for the reversal of the directive is based on the facts that you failed to understand the full implications of your directive that the real organs you will punish are the Nigerian Insurance Consumers who provide the income that accrue to the entire insurance Industry.”
Soladoye said that consumers in Nigeria deserved more than one-week notice from the insurance commission, adding that the association was not impressed with the corresponding increase in the Indemnity limit to N3.0 million.
He added: “You are definitely aware of the fact that even at the current N5,000 MTP premium, many Nigerians still patronise the fake underwriters and this is not because these
Nigerians cannot afford the N5, 000 but because they don’t see any benefit.
“We recall that even in the recent cases of currency redesign and cash withdrawal limit introduced by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) (which is at nil cost to the depositors) still enough time was given to the public for feed backs and adjustments to be made.
“As a Regulator in the Financial Services, you know that Companies and even governments in Nigeria must have concluded their budgets for the year 2023 latest by mid-December 2022.”
He said that the predictable outcome of the policy directive would be substantial increase in the number of fake Insurance Underwriters in the country. (NAN)
