HoS Blasts Insurance Coys for Non-payment of Workers’ Death Benefits

Olawale Ajimotokan in Abuja

Head of Civil Service of the Federation, Dr Folasade Yemi-Esan, has decried the nonchalant attitude of Insurance companies towards payment of death benefits of civil servants.

She expressed her displeasure yesterday at a  meeting in Abuja with underwriters of the Group Life Insurance Policy for federal civil servants.

She raged that the underwriters and brokers were frustrating the federal government’s best effort to improve the welfare of families of deceased workers through the prompt release of funds for the payment of death benefits.

She described the attitude of the insurers as  “unserious” and “unacceptable” and called on the insurers to redeem their non-performance.

She said the meeting was necessary to bridge the gap that existed between the underwriters and brokers, noting it was unreasonable to continue to do the same thing repeatedly without achieving meaningful result.

 “If the Brokers are no longer relevant, then they should be blacklisted,” she added.

She explained that, payment of insurance claim was not a rocket science, stressing that the Office of the Head of Service performed similar function by settling backlog of claims not covered by the present arrangement, seamlessly.

The Key Performance Indexes (KPIs) on settlement of claims as at September, 2022 indicated that the total number of claims reported was 776; number of claims paid was 357; total sum on claims reported, N4,201,392,384.27; number of awaiting EDVs from HoS/MDAs 101; total amount paid N1,574,709,562.12.

Also, number of awaiting DVs from Lead Underwriter 150 (N2,626,682,822.15), total amount expected from EDVs N785,123,928.73, number of incomplete documentations 168 and total outstanding claims is N1,841,558,893.42.

Yemi-Esan further stated that from the breakdown of the report, there was a clear indication of a huge gap between the number of claims reported and those paid and therefore demanded improvement from the Insurance service providers, saying there was always room for other alternatives.

On behalf of the underwriters, the Lead Underwriter and CEO of Old Mutual (Nig.) Ltd., Mr. Segun Omosehin expressed gratitude to the HoS for her concerns and show of outright displeasure with their low performance.