Yemisi Izuora
The National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) has highlighted pathway to reshape confidence, rebuild credibility, and reposition insurance as a strategic pillar of national development.
Olusegun Ayo Omosehin, Commissioner for Insurance/CEO, in his remarks at an insurance forum notes that transformation from a regulatory perspective, means embedding discipline, transparency, innovation, and fairness so deeply into the fabric of the market that trust becomes instinctive, not conditional and also designing a system where compliance is not a burden but a catalyst for scale, efficiency, and investment.
Above all, it means ensuring that every Nigerian—household, business, farmer, entrepreneur—feels the protection and economic empowerment that a strong insurance system provides.
Omosehin, said that NAICOM’s guiding principle is regulation that builds trust and unlocks growth.
According to the Commissioner, Purposeful regulation does three things simultaneously: Protects policyholders through clear conduct standards, timely claims settlement, capital strength, and credible enforcement.
Enables innovation by creating predictable, technologyfriendly rules that lower friction for product development, digital distribution, and alternative data use while safeguarding consumers.
Strengthens market discipline so that competition is responsible—rewarding solvency, governance quality, pricing integrity, and service performance rather than regulatory arbitrage.
He explained that the role of the Agency is not merely to supervise after the fact, but to shape an environment where good firms thrive, customers are treated fairly, and longterm capital forms around stable, insurable risks.
The CEO, further pointed out that the transformation of the sector started before NIIRA 2025, adding, “However, the new Insurance Reform Act provided the impetus to scale the transformation. With NIIRA 2025 now in force, we have a onceinageneration opportunity to modernise the rulebook, raise governance and prudential standards, accelerate digitisation, and expand access.”
In his statement, NAICOM’s regulatory agenda will focus on five mutuallyreinforcing priorities and they include Financial soundness — riskbased capital and ORSAdriven supervision that scale with complexity.
The second is Governance & Compliance — fitandproper leadership, robust risk and audit functions, and meaningful board accountability.
Also, Consumer fairness — clear product terms, disciplined pricing and distribution, fast and transparent claims, and redress that works will be part of the agenda.
He also mentioned, Market conduct & practices — datadriven surveillance, underwriting discipline, fraud reduction, and claims reserving integrity.
In addition he mentioned Innovation & digitisation — sandboxes and fasttrack approvals for inclusive products (micro, parametric, embedded), with cyber and data safeguards.
The NAICOM he promised will continue to reduce regulatory uncertainty, compress decision timelines, and collaborate with sister regulators to eliminate duplications that slow product deployment or raise costs for consumers.
“Penetration improves where trust is consistent. That means pricing that reflects risk and is explained clearly; claims that are paid fully and on time; complaints that are resolved; and data that are secure. We will publish comparable market conduct metrics—turnaround times, claims ratios, and complaint outcomes—so customers can choose with confidence and firms can compete on service, not slogans.” he said.
The next move by NAICOM the Commissioner said will be to publish a phased riskbased capital and governance roadmap with proportionality for smaller and specialist players.
It is also going to operationalise an innovation pathway—sandbox cohorts with defined timelines, standard APIs for supervisory data, and clarity on digital/embedded models in addition to issuing market conduct rules with measurable SLAs for claims and complaints and begin quarterly publication of firmlevel service metrics.
Other plans he listed include digitizing core regulatory interactions—licensing, product filings, and returns, strengthen crossregulator coordination (CBN, SEC, FCCPC, etc) to streamline approvals.