The Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ola Olukoyede, has pledged that the Commission will intensify its focus on monitoring activities within Nigeria’s insurance industry.

According to him, the fraud in the sector was affecting the economic development of the country.

Olukoyede vowed to probe the allegations of fraudulent management of insurance companies in the country.

A statement on Wednesday by the EFCC’s spokesperson, Dele Oyewale, said Olukoyede disclosed this when a delegation of the management team of the National Insurance Commission, led by Commissioner of Insurance and the Chief Executive Officer, Olusegun Omosehin, paid him a courtesy visit at EFCC’s corporate headquarters.

The head of the anti-graft agency stated that the insurance industry would receive the same level of scrutiny as the banking sector to support its growth.

He said the EFCC has a Bank Fraud Section and would review its scope to accommodate issues of fraud in the insurance industry.

Olukoyede said, “The issue of insurance fraud is a major albatross to our economic development. We are ready to take up some of these cases, particularly insolvency, that is attributed to fraudulent management of these insurance companies. It is something that we must not tolerate, and that is where the issue of regulatory compliance takes the front burner in countries where things work.

“We are ready to work with you, and when they see us working together, it would send signals to the industry players that it is no longer going to be business as usual. Just be ready to give us the necessary information that we need to work with.

“Beginning today, we are going to start looking at insurance companies very seriously, just the way we are looking at the banking industry so that the industry can grow.

“We have a Bank Fraud Section, we are now going to review the scope of work of that section to include insurance so that we can take care of other emerging issues in the financial system,” he said.

The EFCC boss decried a situation where insurance companies are only keen on accepting premiums and not settling claims.

He said, “They are very fast at collecting premiums, but when it comes to settling claims, they would start coming up with all kinds of excuses. When you go to a place like the US and Europe, you will discover that the scale of activities in insurance companies is probably larger than those of the banks. We will collaborate with you. We are going to lend you our teeth so that you can bite.”

Omosehin noted that policymakers are always at the losing end in the event of a collapse of insurance companies as a result of corporate governance failures.

“Where insurance institutions are failing, we are expected to intervene and take appropriate regulatory actions. We have a history of having seen institutional failures among some of the entities that we regulate.

“The beginning of such institutional failures often comes from corporate governance violations, and this cuts across several areas, including where the commonwealth of such institutions have been mismanaged by some individuals, and the people that suffer the consequences are the policyholders who have put in their life savings in those institutions.

“The institution goes down, and they walk away with the loot. It is our responsibility to report such situations to appropriate sister agencies who can ensure that they are brought to book. This is one of the few things that we have put on the burner to come to the EFCC,” he said. (The PUNCH)