By Bukola Adetoye
Lagos – The Nigerian Insurers’ Association (NIA) on Friday assured steady payments of insurance benefits to contributors under Group Life Insurance Scheme.
The Director-General of the association, Mr Sunday Thomas, said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.
Thomas was reacting to an allegation that the National Pension Commission (PenCom) moved annuity assets from life insurance to Pension Fund Custodians (PFC’s) to ensure consistency.
He said that PenCom lacked legal grounds to call for transfer of annuity assets from life insurance companies to PFCs.
Thomas said that the industry’s paid gross claims from life business stood at N35.94 million as at 2016 financial year
He said that the impediment that characterised the transfer of benefits from insurance firms to Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) when under a group life insurance arrangement had been eradicated.
Thomas said that prior to Pension Reform Act (PRA) 2014, PFAs were not allowed to pay out benefits if the deceased worker did not leave a ‘Will’ behind, except the dependants produced “letters of administration“.
“The provision makes most dependants of deceased workers to forgo the benefits because they are unable to go through the stress of obtaining letter of administration,’’ he said.
Thomas, however, said that under the PRA 2014 as amended, the requirement for a ‘Will’ was removed for the settlement of group life insurance claims but retained for pensions.
“The PRA 2014 also stipulates that the PFAs should pay the pensions of the deceased contributors, while life underwriting companies should pay their insurance benefits.
“So the removal of the requirement for a ‘Will’ has enabled a lot of deceased contributors dependants who were before finding it difficult to get the insurance benefits to go for them’’ he said.
He said that PenCom lacked legal grounds to call for transfer of annuity assets from life insurance companies to PFCs.
Thomas said that the association had sought the intervention of the National Assembly, Secretary to the Federal Government, Minister of Finance and the Head of Service on the issue of transfer of life annuity assets to PFCs as directed by PenCom.
Many Nigerians are languishing under the delays bedevilling smooth collection of pension entitlements after service and it is time that pension issues should be reviewed.