Forty six insurance companies and two reinsurance firms have been sanctioned for failing to meet the June 30, 2013 deadline for the submission of their 2012 financial reports to the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM).

The companies were respectively made to pay a daily fine of N5, 000 for all the days they breached the regulation.

The commissioned confirmed this on Monday when it said only three out of the 49 insurance and two reinsurance companies under its supervision were able to meet the deadline set for the submission and approval of 2012 financial report for operators.

The Senior Manager, Corporate Communications at NAICOM, Mr. Salami Rasaaq, made this known yesterday in a statement titled: “Submission Status of 2012 Financial Statements of Insurance Companies as at July 1, 2012.”

The three companies that met the  deadline, according to him, were Mansard Insurance Plc, Wapic Insurance Plc and ADIC Insurance Company Limited.

The commission allows companies under its supervision six months from the preceding year to submit and get their financial reports for the previous year approved even as stakeholders had made a strong case for this to be reviewed down to three months.

Also, any company that fails to meet the deadline pays N5,000 fines for each day it remain in breach of this important rule.  Likewise, stakeholders have asked the commission to raise this amount of the fine significantly to ensure that operators comply.

Reporting on the level of compliance with the submission rule this year, Salami said three other companies, Continental Reinsurance Plc, Law Union & Rock Insurance Plc and FBN Life Assurance Limited had their reports returned with queries.  Their responses were still being awaited at the commission as at Monday.

Also, three other companies, Oasis Insurance Plc, Aiico Insurance Plc and Consolidated Hallmark Assurance Plc (CHI) that submitted and had their financial reports returned with queries have since responded to the queries.  The commission is reviewing their responses, he said.

Salami also confirmed that nine other companies managed to submit their 2012 financial reports to the commission as at July 1, 2013, adding that the commission was still reviewing their submission as this is still within the four days allowed for the review.

They are UBA Metropolitan Life Assurance Limited, Custodian & Allied Insurance Plc, NEM Insurance Plc, Crusader General Insurance Company Limited and Crusader Life Assurance Limited.

The others are Zenith Life Insurance Company Limited, Zenith General Insurance Company Limited, Standard Alliance Life Assurance Company Limited and FIN Insurance Company Limited.

Meanwhile, the Commissioner for Insurance, Mr. Fola Daniel, has traced the low turn out to the difficulties associated with the conversion to the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).

He, however, added that the commission had in place necessary machinery to help the operators cope with the IFRS challenges.

“In the last four weeks we have come up with about five pages write up to say these are common problems because it is a year of transition to IFRS and there is going to be transitional difficulties.

“So we have come up with about five pages explanatory note and we have also created a help desk in NAICOM where you meet about 13 people and you are encouraged to ask questions before submitting your accounts and clear areas where you have doubts with a view to shortening the approval time,” the commissioner said.

He also stated that the commission has set up a standard for approving qualified financial reports submitted to it in just four days.

“In NAICOM, I have also instructed that every account submitted must either be cleared in four days or you revert in four working days.  If the accounts is good, we must approve in four days and wherever I may be I can approve it online but if they are not approvable then we must send a query back to the respective companies in four days and so far we have cleared only five companies,” Daniel said.

Source: Thisday (by Nnamdi Duru)