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From Uche Usim, Abuja
Actuaries working in life insurance companies have been empowered by the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) in its efforts to ensure the full capturing and management of proceeds that will flow from the N14.43 trillion pension fund assets into retiree life annuity.
Actuaries are people who compile and analyze statistics and use them to calculate insurance risks and premiums.
The development was contained in NAICOM’s recently-released Prudential Guidelines for Insurance Sector.
According to the document which seeks to boost insurance in Nigeria, all insurers must ensure that their actuarial functions have access to all relevant data, information, reports, and must take all pragmatic steps to ensure access to all relevant service providers of the insurer, that its actuarial function reasonably believes are necessary to fulfill their responsibilities.
Specifically, NAICOM mandated Head of actuarial functions in the insurance organisationd not to hold positions within or outside of the insurer that may create conflicts of interest or compromise his or her independence.
NAICOM further stated that the Head of actuarial function is obligated to notify the Commission if he or she resigns for reasons connected with his or her duties or with the conduct of the insurer’s business and give the reasons for resigning.
The regulator added that the Head of actuarial function shall also notify the Commission and provide an explanation if his or her appointment is revoked by the insurer.
On external actuary, it noted that all insurers are required to send a profile of the external actuary to the Commission for approval not later than two months prior to the commencement of valuation, stressing that in addition, the submission shall contain evidence of registration with the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria.
NAICOM stated that the adequacy of the liabilities on both life and non-life insurance contracts shall be based on valuation carried out on annual basis by an actuary recognised by the Commission and registered with the Financial Reporting Council.
