35 States Fail To Provide Workers’ Insurance

Four more states have stopped providing group life insurance policy for their workers, thus joining 31 others that had failed to adopt the policy, investigation has revealed.

Latest figures obtained from the National Pension Commission revealed that only workers in Kaduna State and the Federal Capital Territory had valid group life insurance cover.

According to the PenCom’s list, Kaduna is the only compliant state in terms of pension and insurance obligation to workers.

Kaduna was up to date in remittance of pension contributions and funding accrued pension rights consistently with five per cent of the total monthly wage bill.

The four states that hitherto complied with the compulsory insurance policy for their workers are Lagos, Niger, Osun and Rivers.

However, PenCom’s latest report on the ‘level of compliance with the Compulsory Pension Scheme by state governments showed that none of the states had valid insurance covers as of the end of June 2019.

Anambra, Delta, Edo, Ekiti, Jigawa, Kebbi, Lagos, Ondo and Osun had different levels of compliance with the pension scheme.

Other states are not remitting funds into workers’ Retirement Savings Accounts, according to PenCom.

The GLIP is one of the mandatory insurance policies in the country’s statutory laws under the Pension Reform Act 2014.

Part of the law states, “Employers shall maintain life insurance policy in favour of each employee for a minimum of three times the annual total emolument of the employee.”

When the policy is in place, the relatives of a deceased worker would be able to get financial compensation if their breadwinner died.

The Nigerian Insurers Association had said that the provision of insurance compensation would cushion the effect of the loss of their breadwinners.

It noted that this would also boost the workers’ morale to do their job well.

According to the Director-General, NIA, Mrs Yetunde Ilori, insurance is a means of planning for ones’ future.

She noted that many relatives of deceased workers had benefitted from the GLIP because they were compensated by insurance companies.

These funds, she said, had helped the affected families to move on with their lives without having to resort to begging.

She however observed that many employers had yet to have the GLIP for their employees.