PenCom issues March deadline for group life insurance compliance

The National Pension Commission (PenCom), has fixed March 2020, for firms with no Group Life Insurance Policies (GLIPs) for their staff to do so, as such organisations would no longer be permitted to do government businesses.
 
The Commission disclosed this in its recently issued compliance guidelines on Life Insurance Policy for employees and submission of insurance certificate for 2020, noting that the deadline was issued because of the low number of companies that have acquired insurance covers for their staff.
 
According to PenCom, the new regulation would ensure that companies opened Retirement Savings Accounts (RSAs) for their employees, and also acquire the appropriate life insurance for them.

Meanwhile, the 2018 annual report released recently by the Commission indicated that only 172 employers obtained the group life insurance policy for a total of 39,946 employees in compliance with the Pension Reform Act (PRA) 2014.

“In compliance with the PRA 2014, a total of 172 employers of labour covered under the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) submitted their certificates of group life insurance policy covering over 39,946 employees in the year under review.

“A breakdown of the 172 GLIPs submitted showed that 168 employers were from the private sector, while the others were from self-funded FGN agencies,” the report stated.

According to the directive as stipulated in the PRA 2014, companies that do not have insurance certificates would not be allowed to bid or solicit contracts or businesses from any Federal Government Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs).
 
In line with this regard, the Commission issues annual pension clearance certificates to eligible organisations and has mandated the MDAs to ensure that only pension clearance certificates issued by the PENCOM are accepted as evidence of compliance with the PRA 2014.
 
“In accordance with the provisions of Section 4(5) of the 2014, and Section 5.5 of the guidelines for life insurance policy for employees, employers of labour covered by the PRA 2014, are required to submit copies of the insurance certificates with the schedule of benefits to the National Pension Commission,” PenCom stated.