NAN-HE-15
NICON
By Lucy Nwachukwu
Abuja, Jan. 27, 2017 (NAN) Mr Samuel Bayode, the Managing Director, National Insurance Company (NICON) on Friday said the company had been restructured and set to take its rightful place in the insurance business.
Bayode made this known when he led the management of NICON to visit the Managing Director of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Mr Bayo Onanuga in Abuja.
The NICON Managing Director, represented by Mr Steven Ojo, the Executive Director, Finance and Account, NICON said that the company was one of the leading insurance companies in the country before its privatisation.
“NICON has been in existence for years, and as at today it is the biggest insurance company in terms of assets but in terms of revenue, we are not number one.
“Before, NICON was not going out for marketing as it is a government-owned insurance company; we get our business through sanctions by ensuring that all government assets are insured by NICON.
“But since it was privatised, all those privileges were given to other insurance companies, and we are now in the market trying to showcase what we have and our business.
“Now, we have put structures in place and we believe that we want to come back and take back our number one position.’’
He said that after the privatisation, more liabilities than assets were inherited by NICON, however, the company had been able to clear those liabilities and ready to use its assets to generate revenue.
“We have been trying to streamline the liabilities, we paid gratuity to those staff we thought are not useful and we settled the claims we met; now we are being driven to make profit.’’
Bayode said that the present management of the NICON was determined to take the company to another level, adding that it therefore needed the partnership of NAN to help in achieving the purpose.
“We are here for a familiarisation visit and at the same time to form an alliance because in any business you do, information is very important and NAN is number one in news in Nigeria.
“We are here to form a partnership and we are looking at a way we can be of importance to each other and you have assets we can insure,’’ he said.
Bayode explained that the company was still insuring the assets of the Federal Government with 15 per cent of the company belonging to the government.
“In Nigeria today, we are the only insurance company that insures all the students of unity schools all over the country.
“We insure them in what we call Student Welfare Scheme in which the student at the beginning of the year pays N5, 000 as premium to insure the future of the student.
“If the sponsor or parent dies NICON takes over the sponsorship of that child for the period of his stay in school.
“A year is N500, 000, in which N300, 000 goes to the school and N200, 000 goes to the person responsible for the upkeep of the student.
“In that effect, the number of dropouts in unity schools have reduced because what makes students to drop out of school is when there is nobody to sponsor them.
“We are present in all the Unity Schools in Nigeria and as today we have branches in all the states and have six regional offices making 42 offices across Nigeria.
Responding, the NAN Managing Director assured NICON of the willingness of NAN to partner with the company to ensure information was disseminated to the world.
“In doing that, anytime you have a special conference, give us information so our correspondent can cover it and by that the whole world will know you are back in business.’’
He however said that NAN had issues with NICON where gratuities of retired staff were not paid when due and expressed optimism that the new management would look into it.
“Since you are back, NAN management will look at the possibility of you coming back and insure our property with you.
“The agency also has some products which we would like you to buy and we expect that as we partner with you, you also partner with us,’’ Onanuga said. (NAN)
LCN/GY
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Edited by Grace Yussuf