NAICOM: No Extension of July 2026 Recapitalisation Deadline

Ebere Nwoji

Insurance Sector regulatory authority, National Insurance Commission(NAICOM), has said that no single insurance firm has crossed the recapitalisation huddle.

NAICOM also said it would not extend  the deadline  of July 31,2026 given to insurance firms to recapitalise their businesses.

The Commissioner for Insurance, Mr Olusegun Ayo Omosehin, stated this yesterday  in Lagos while addressing the media on the activities of the commission and update on the recapitalisation exercise.

Omosehin, however, said no less than 20 insurance underwriting firms have officially written the commission on their recapitalisation efforts informing the commission that they were ready for verification.

He said given this information, his office had assigned verifiers to look into their books and report back to his office within a timeframe of three weeks.

In his response to  journalists’ question on the possibility of grace period for the exercise to enable firms to comply and remain alive in business, Omosehin said the July 31st recapitalisation deadline was sacrosanct and would not be shifted for any reason.

According to him, it goes beyond his power as insurance commissioner because it was stated by the Nigeria Insurance Industry  Act ( NIIRA25) and cannot be shifted by any authority except with the amendment of the law.

He said currently all insurance firms in the system were going through NAICOM’S scanning machine and that the result of the scanning would soon be made known.

He  however, said NAICOM as regulator encourages insurance firms who do not have a stand alone stamina to go into marriages with other companies to be able to remain alive.

He noted   the problem the operators had in the past which is likely going   to happen even in the preset situation is that as many are going through  public offers, right issues, private placement, their investors usually raise hopes of bringing in money thereby making the firms not to look for mergers and acquisition but that at the dying minute, they would come up with excuses on why they could not bring in money by that the the deadline would have been at hand and the companies would begin to look for merger with any available firm if only to remain in business.

He said such emergency mergers come with problem as he pointed that in the previous recapitalisation a good number of operating firms who consummated such ad hoc mergers carried a lot of liabilities some of them are still grappling with. He advised operating firms to make adequate arrangements in their bid to meet the recapitalisation exercise.

He said as it stands, NAICOM was not in position to search for investors for insurance entities but would create enabling environment that would attract investors.

He said already foreign investors have been coming and making enquiries disclosing that the biggest insurance company  in Egypt recently visited the Commissioner for  Insurance for this  same reason.

NAICOM had  in August 13 th 2025, announced a new capital regime for insurance firms and reinsurance firms.

This followed  the enactment of the Nigerian Insurance Industry Reform Act (NIIRA) 2025. The directive mandated insurance firms to comply by July 31, 2026, setting new minimum capital thresholds for life  on N10 billion from the existing capital of N2 billion, non-life N15 billion from the existing N3 billion, and reinsurance N35 billion from N10 billion.