Why NPF May Launch Its Own Insurance Outfit

Indications are rife that the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) may soon float its own insurance company if finally receives the National Insurance Commission’s (NAICOM) approval.

To this end, private insurers who have been providing insurance services to the Force would have to look elsewhere for business to augment the shortfall.

It waslearnt that the Nigeria police is about to foray into the insurance market having obtained approval from Usman Alkali Baba, Inspector-General of Police, to establish the Nigeria Police Insurance Company (NPIC).

There are indications that the initiative is considered unnecessary by a section of the market, contending that the NPIC would not be effectively and efficiently run as a business and that the purpose will not be achieved.

They also posited that the new insurance outfit will only be run like every other business of government with less commitment to the ideals of such an institution, a factor that has made most government parastatals inefficient.

It was, however, gathered that the police have already applied to NAICOM for an operating licence and if granted, the NPIC will manage police insurance policies which run into hundreds of thousands of both police entity and individual accounts.

The huge account, according to analysts, will be automatically transferred to the NPIC, a replica of what played out when the Police Force obtained an operating licence from the National Pension Commission (PenCom) to run its own pension fund outfit now operational.

The Force also is actively playing in the banking sector through the Police Microfinance Bank. Although the modus operandi of the NPIC is yet to be spelt out, analysts are of the view that if the police must go into insurance, it has to be total in terms of spread and size gave the numbers of their personnel and assets across the police commands nationwide to accommodate both life and non-life end of insurance policyholders.