A former senior staff with the First Bank Plc, Mr. Taiwo Shojobi, has petitioned the Nigerian Insurance regulatory agency, National Insurance Commission (NAICOM), over the refusal of NSIA Insurance Limited (formerly ADDIC Insurance) to pay him all premium he paid to the company for an insurance policy in 2008.
Shojobi stated in the petition that he paid the sum of N330,000 (Three Hundred Thirty Thousand Naira) to NSIA being the requested monthly premium over the first year in 2008, but since then, the insurance firm’s agent who collected the payments on behalf of NSIA disappeared into thin air thereafter and never showed up for further collection of the premium payments. He further added that in as much as it was the insurance firm that initiated the contract by sending their agent to his office to canvass for his support, which he gladly agreed to based on their agent’s promise to come subsequently for the next batch of 12 months cheque for year 2009, but failed to come around.
He stressed that all attempts to trace NSIA’s agent, whom he was dealing with, proved abortive, adding that between that 2008 and September 2010 when he voluntarily retired from the services of First Bank Plc, he did not receive any communication whatsoever from neither the Insurance firm’s agent nor their officer until 2015 when he demanded for his benefits that he was informed that their agent, who transacted the business with him on their behalf, had notified them that he (Shojobi) refused to continue payment of premium, whereas she had then seized to be an agent or representative of the Insurance firm.
The ex-banker condemned the NSIA Insurance Limited for relaying on article 6 surrender of policy, which he described as a deliberate ploy embodied in the policy to defraud unsuspecting customers who had taken the insurance policy in utmost good faith.
“It sounds funny for an insurance firm to keep silent when the firm has problem reaching the customer who had hitherto paid his premium on regular basis principally because it plans to rely on the so called article 6 to defraud the customer of his hard earned money”, said the ex-banker.
Shojobi stressed that the insurance firm deliberately framed up an argument that their agent, who was dealing with him on their behalf informed them that he refused to continue with the premium payment without due recourse to him for confirmation, thereby exposing the firm’s act of negligence to their clients.
He noted that since he was no longer in paid employment to enable him continue with the premium payment, he had made several efforts to get all the premium he had paid with the interest, profit and reversionary bonuses paid to him, but to no avail.
Shojobi, therefore, implored NAICOM to wade in by instructing NSIA Insurance Limited to consider and deem the policy paid up and thereafter pay to him the surrender value accrued thereon in full.
The petitioner, who said he wasn’t ruling out taking necessary legal action if he could not get the management of NSIA Insurance Limited to pay him all his entitlements, urged NAICOM to direct NSIA to ensure full payment of the profits, all accruable reversionary bonuses and interest accruable on the policy since 2008 to date.
While calling on NAICOM to urgently intervene and ensure NSIA’s prompt settlement of all his requests, Shojobi pleaded with the insurance regulatory agency and all well-meaning Nigerians to help him to prevail on NSIA insurance Limited to pay up all his entitlements in order to ensure his confidence in the operations of insurance business in Nigeria was not further shaken.
