National Insurance Commission (NAICOM)has denied investigating any insurance institution in the country, reassuring stakeholders in the industry that none of the recertified 49 insurance and two reinsurance companies is under investigation for any malpractice.

The regulatory body for insurance practice in Nigeria, however, confirmed that the commission is only conducting routine inspection of the books and activities of all the operators in the industry.

Commissioner for Insurance, Mr. Fola Daniel, made this clarification in Abuja, saying that it is wrong for any body to say that the operators were being investigated when what commission is going on now is routine regulatory function in performance of its oversight function.

"A journalist asked me to make confirmation on the ongoing investigation of some insurance companies. That was wrong because NAICOM is not investigation any company rather what is happening is a routine inspection of the books of all the insurance companies. Inspection of the books of companies is a daily routine in the industry", Daniel said.

According to him, insurance consolidation ended technically February 28, 2007 and six months after, the commission ought to have sent out inspectors to go and verify the books of the operators to ascertain whether what they claimed in the process is true or false. It is this particular routine oversight function that the commission is doing and it covers all the operators in the industry and not just a few companies, he added.

Daniel also stressed that the commission likewise any other regulatory body must perform its oversight functions accordingly to ensure that the operators play according to the rules guiding the practice any particular business and to ensure that other stakeholders are not shortchanged.

"We will embark on routine inspection soon but we will not advertise what we find out because we owe investors the duty to ensure that things are properly done. We will take corrective measures without going public with it because at the end of the day, the company may have been damaged beyond what we intend if we go to the press with the outcome of routine checks by the regulatory body", the Insurance Commissioner reassured.

Daniel also emphasised the need for insurance companies to ensure that the benefits that could have arisen from motor insurance business in the country is not taken away by fake operators, advising them to devise means of electronically putting the fraudsters' activities under check.

"What the industry has to do is to revive VISER, not as stickers because we have gone beyond that and in the case of Niger Insurance it was faked two weeks after the company took delivery of it. I think we should go electronic, there must be a way of reducing everything to something like driving license and the industry must be prepared to buy detective gadgets for security agencies.

"We can give as many as possible to them and would be NIA and we are educating the police that the drivers are endangering the lives of Nigerians with fake insurance certificates', the commissioner said.

"There are companies that do not have more than three branches in the country. We cannot keep N3 billion of people's money and just maintain three or four branches. The fake insurance market is very big in Onitsha but if we have authentic insurance companies and educate Nigerian about the dangers in using fake insurers I don't think they will be ready to buy fake insurance", he said.