Insurance Not Gambling, Says Chiejina
By Nnamdi Duru
The Director-General of Nigerian Insurers' Association (NIA), Mr. Ezekiel Chiejina has drawn a distinction between the business of insurance and grambling maintaining that while the former is a legal contract that requires full disclosure, the latter is a game of chance.
Chiejina in his book, "Foundations of Insurance: Law, Agency and Salesmanship" submitted that it is intellectual fraud or a ploy to obstruct insurance sales to argue that insurance is tantamount to gambling.
He underscored a six-point difference between insurance and gambling in the reas of meaning, stakes of parties in the transaction, legality of the contract, indemnity and subrogation rights as well as mandatory full disclosure of material facts and regulation of both practices.
He submitted that "insurance is a legally enforceable contract requiring insurable interest in existing property or life intended to protect, so that the insured will be indemnified in case of loss. The contract demands utmost good faith and regulated to protect consures".
On the other hand, he stated that "gambling is not legally enforceable, there is no requirement of utmost good faith or interest in the event other than speculation to profit; the loser cannot be indemnified". "The gambler is not protected by the law, regulation is intended to limit the evil", he added.
REviewing the book at the launching in Lagos recently, the President of Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria (CIIN), Alhaji Bala Zakariya'u regretted the recycling of British books going on in the industry while underscoring the need for insurance professionals in the country to write books on the business of insurance.
"At the CIIN, we have continued to reprint books printed by the London institute. It is painful to note that inspite of the number of professionals we have and the level of development in the industry, we are still unable to produce enough literature relevant to domestic practice of our business", he lamented.
he observed that the book qualifies as an introductory text that would serve as a refresher to practitioners.
The book has 270 pages of nineteen chapters excluding reference materials such as defition of terms, relevant abbreviations, appendices, extracts from part VII of the Insurance Act, 2003, Insurance Regulations, 2003 and Code of Ethics and Insurance, 2003.
The book is sub-divided into six sections treating introduction to insurance, non-life and life insurance, legal aspects of insurance as well as technical aspects of the business and salesmanship.
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