Awareness, key to insurance enforcement-Kari
By Abdul Olalekan
Commissioner for Insurance, Alhaji Mohammed Kari, has said that insurance enforcement would become easier if individuals and entities meant to consume insurance products and services were made to be aware of the benefits inherent in the consumption of these products.
Kari, while speaking at the Insurance Industry Consultative Forum (IICC) training on compulsory insurance in Abuja, noted that to increase insurance penetration and acceptance in the country, there was the need to ensure that both the enforcers and the consumers were sufficiently and adequately trained.
“There is no doubt that compliance with the laws on compulsory insurance will go a long way to mitigate the adverse exposure to disaster by individuals with access to public places”, he said.
Stating that the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) was making effort to re-launch the Market Development and Restructuring Initiative (MDRI), he said an awareness campaign was being run concurrently in the media to better inform the general public of the respective compulsory classes and their benefits.
The commission, he stressed, was reaching out to states to domesticate compulsory insurances laws in their respective states for easier enforcement within their jurisdictions.
“When this is successfully accomplished”, he said, it will drive penetration and contribution of insurance to the Gross Domestic Products (GDP) of the country.
“The beneficial importance of compulsory insurance is evident in all sphere of life as it guarantees a form of protection and compensation to victims provided that they are insured, hence they do not have to bear huge financial burden. It also serves as a form of social assistance for the vulnerable people in the society,” he pointed out.
To the economy, he said government would not have to bear the burden alone during catastrophic events such as natural disaster, fire accident thereby saving the government money which can be channelled to augmenting the needs of the citizenry, providing infrastructures and creating employment, among others.
