Insurance companies are finding it difficult to access the fresh capital of about ₦300 billion they raised under the recently concluded recapitalisation programme.
The funds are being held at the Central Bank of Nigeria, pending verification for possible illicit fund inflows.
Vanguard reported that the apex bank introduced a stricter capital verification regime after suspecting that some of the new investments in the firms may have come from illicit sources. The process has proved difficult for most of the insurers to scale through.
It was further learnt that the National Insurance Commission has approved the release of the funds to the insurers by the apex bank, but the affected firms are still going through the verification process.
Speaking to journalists at a virtual press briefing on the outcome of the Insurers Committee meeting, the Chairman of the Nigerian Insurers Association, Mrs Ebelechukwu Nwachukwu, said the sector regulator had done its part. She added that operators were now working to meet the CBN criteria so as to access the funds on or before the end of this month.
The insurers said they had planned to deploy the new capital in the third quarter of this year to improve their financial performance in 2026. They also intended to reward investors with good dividend returns for supporting the recapitalisation programme.
It will be recalled that 24 insurance companies cumulatively raised ₦300 billion during the exercise. This was added to over ₦700 billion in existing capital, bringing total industry capital to ₦1.079 trillion after recapitalisation.
The Nigerian Insurance Industry Reform Act (NIIRA), 2025, stipulated that underwriting firms and reinsurers that took part in the recapitalisation exercise, which ended on July 31, 2026, must keep their recapitalised funds in an escrow account with the CBN.
Of the 50 firms that cleared the recapitalisation hurdle, 24 raised fresh capital, while 26 had already surpassed the minimum capital benchmark.
NIIRA required life underwriters to raise their capital from ₦2 billion to ₦10 billion, non-life underwriters from ₦3 billion to ₦15 billion, and reinsurers from ₦10 billion to ₦35 billion.
The Commissioner for Insurance and Chief Executive Officer of NAICOM, Mr Olusegun Omosehin, had earlier disclosed that capital in the market had risen to ₦1.079 trillion, from about ₦700 billion before the exercise.
According to him, NAICOM now wants operators to be able to access the recapitalisation funds. He promised that the regulator would monitor the operators to ensure the funds serve their intended purpose and are not mismanaged or diverted into other ventures.
