THE Chairman of Wapic Insurance Plc, Mr. AigbojeAig-Imoukhuede, has called for increase in the capital base of insurance companies in the country to N100 billion. Aig-Imoukhuede, who called for the increment at the KPMG Insurance Conference 2017 held in Lagos, said the current capital base at N20 billion does not enable the operators to underwrite big risks.

He said that for the industry to witness any desired transformation it has to toe the path of the banking sector. Represented by the Head, Sales and Distribution of Wapic Insurance Plc, Mr. Oyebode Ojeniyi, said there were some businesses going on in the country which the insurance companies was not in position to benefit from.

He stated, “despite the regulator’s insistence that all transactions must have local content, today there are mega deals coming out in which even with the capital we are unable to participate. So a lot of transactions that are supposed to be retained in the country are still being taken out to developed markets. We need to recapitalize to the level that we are able to do deals and retain significant portion of revenue that is going out of the country.”

On his part, the Deputy Commissioner for Insurance, National Insurance Commission, NAICOM, Mr. George Onekhena, said the Commission has issued a draft map to transit the industry fully to risk based supervision, RBS, by 2020, stressing that it is imperative for insurance companies to hold sufficient capital to cover their risk exposure, with or without RBS.

He stated: “RBS will facilitate effective use of resources and minimize the burden of regulation felt by insurers because the attention paid to each entity is based on its risk profile and quality of risk management- bad cases get more attention and vice versa.”

Source: VANGUARD