Keynote Address by Mr. Olusegun Ayo Omosehin, Commissioner for Insurance/Chief Executive, National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) at the Official Launch of the Lagos State Building Insurance Scheme.
I bring you warm greetings from the National Insurance Commission. It is my singular honour and privilege to stand before you today, and I thank the Government of Lagos State for the kind invitation to deliver this keynote address on this landmark official launch of the Lagos State Building Insurance Scheme, an initiative that represents a major milestone in the evolution of risk management, urban resilience, consumer protection, and insurance growth and development in Nigeria.
As described by the Lagos State Government, the Scheme combines digital innovation, geospatial intelligence, and systematic enforcement to ensure that buildings across Lagos are protected against the devastating consequences of fire, flood, and building collapse.
I want to congratulate His Excellency, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the Lagos State Government, and all stakeholders whose vision, commitment, and leadership have culminated in this historic achievement.
Today is not a ceremonial occasion. It is a day to launch a scheme that will change the relationship between the people of Lagos and the buildings in which they live, work, trade and worship.
We meet, however, against a sober backdrop. In recent weeks this State and others have again counted the cost of building collapse in human lives. These are not statistics. They are families. Behind every collapse and every fire is a household that loses a home, a trader who loses a livelihood, and too often, a life that cannot be recovered. The question that must trouble any responsible government and any serious regulator is simple: when disaster strikes, who bears the loss?
For too long in this country, the answer has been skewed in sad reflections of the victims. The Lagos State Building Insurance Scheme is designed to change that answer. That is why it matters.
This launch is a demonstration of what can be achieved when government institutions, regulators, technology partners, professional bodies, and the insurance industry work together with a shared purpose. The long-existing partnership between Lagos State Government and the National Insurance Commission is a model of cooperative governance. It reflects a common commitment to protecting citizens, strengthening economic resilience, deepening insurance penetration, and ensuring that insurance fulfils its proper role as a social and economic stabilizer.
It is on record, and has always been the tradition, that Lagos State has once again demonstrated leadership by embracing insurance not merely as a legal requirement, but as a critical public policy tool for safeguarding lives, properties, investments, livelihoods, businesses, communities, and public assets against the devastating consequences of fire outbreaks, floods, and building collapse.
As Nigeria’s commercial capital, Lagos carries enormous strategic significance. The concentration of residential, commercial, industrial, and public infrastructure assets within the State makes risk mitigation an imperative rather than an option. The successful implementation of this Scheme will not only protect Lagosians but also provide a replicable model for other states across the federation.
Insurance is often misunderstood as merely a financial product. In reality, insurance is an instrument of social protection and economic recovery. When a building collapses, insurance helps families recover. When fire destroys commercial premises, insurance enables businesses to restart operations. When floods damage homes and public facilities, insurance provides financial support that reduces suffering and accelerates recovery.
Without insurance, disasters push individuals, businesses, and governments into severe financial distress and trigger economic waste. With insurance, shocks become manageable and recovery becomes possible. This is why compulsory building insurance is not simply a regulatory requirement; it is a public safety intervention.
The Lagos State Building Insurance Scheme therefore advances a broader national objective of ensuring that no Nigerian is left completely vulnerable when disaster strikes.
This Scheme does not stand on goodwill alone. It stands on law.
In 2025, His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, signed into law the Nigerian Insurance Industry Reform Act NIIRA 2025 the most far-reaching insurance legislation this country has seen in more than two decades. That Act repealed and consolidated our fragmented insurance laws into a single, modern framework.
It strengthened the capital base of our underwriters. It sharpened consumer protection. And, of direct relevance to today, it renewed the force of compulsory insurance and gave the Commission clearer authority to see it enforced.
The Act makes plain what the law now requires. Public buildings and buildings under construction above a prescribed height must carry insurance cover that protects not only the owner, but the occupier, the visitor and the passer by. The purpose of the law is not to burden the citizen. It is to ensure that where negligence, fire, flood or collapse causes loss, there is a fund from which that citizen can be made whole.
What Lagos State has done is to take this national law and give it practical, enforceable life at the level where buildings actually stand. That is precisely the partnership the Act envisaged between the federal regulator and the state governments.
Nigeria does not suffer from a shortage of laws. Our challenge, honestly stated, has always been enforcement. We have carried compulsory insurance provisions on our books for years while compliance remained weak, awareness remained low, and forged certificates circulated freely.
What distinguishes the Lagos initiative is that it confronts the enforcement gap directly. By marrying geospatial building intelligence to a digital delivery platform and to systematic enforcement at State scale, Lagos is not merely restating an obligation. It is building machinery to make the obligation real.
This is also fully aligned with the direction of NIIRA 2025, which deliberately promotes digital distribution, electronic policies and data driven supervision. Lagos has read the reform correctly and has moved first.
Let me speak plainly to the citizen, because ultimately this Scheme is for the citizen, not for the industry.
If your building is covered and a fire sweeps through it, you will not begin again from nothing. If a structure collapses and an innocent person is injured, there will be a means of compensation rather than a funeral and a fight. If flood damages the premises in which you earn your living, recovery becomes a claim to be paid rather than a ruin to be endured. Insurance, properly enforced, converts catastrophe into something a family and a community can survive. That is the whole of the matter.
For our industry, this is a moment of both opportunity and obligation.
The opportunity is historic. Bringing the buildings of Lagos into cover introduces a vast new class of insured risk, deepens penetration in a market that has long underperformed its potential, and expands the base on which underwriters can build. It advances the national ambition of drawing tens of millions of uninsured Nigerians into the formal financial safety net, and it supports the Federal Government’s vision of a one trillion-dollar economy in which insurance plays its proper role as a mobiliser of long-term capital.
But let me be equally clear about the obligation, and let this be heard by every underwriter in this room. The confidence we build today will be won or lost at the point of claim. A scheme that collects premiums promptly but pays claims slowly will fail and it will deserve to fail. The Commission will hold operators to the standards the law demands: fair terms, honest pricing, and prompt, full settlement of legitimate claims. Public confidence in insurance is not a slogan. It is earned one honoured claim at a time.
The foundation upon which this initiative stands is the ongoing transformation of the Nigerian insurance sector. The Lagos State Government itself has acknowledged the role of the Nigerian Insurance Industry Reform Act 2025 in enabling initiatives such as this.
At NAICOM, our reform agenda is focused on one central objective, building a stronger, more inclusive, more trusted, and more resilient insurance industry.
The Lagos State Building Insurance Scheme presents a valuable opportunity to showcase insurance as a practical solution to real-world challenges.
I wish to use this occasion to call upon all stakeholders to support this initiative.
To property owners: view insurance as an investment in resilience rather than a regulatory obligation.
To developers and construction professionals: integrate insurance considerations into project planning and risk management frameworks.
To insurance companies: provide excellent service, fair pricing, and prompt claims settlement.
To brokers and agents: continue educating the public and facilitating informed decisions.
To government agencies: maintain collaboration and enforcement consistency.
Together, we can create a culture where protection becomes standard practice rather than an afterthought.
The Commission’s Commitment
On behalf of the National Insurance Commission, I make three commitments today.
First, we will provide the regulatory backing that this Scheme requires, ensuring that every policy issued under it is underwritten by companies licensed and supervised by the Commission, and by no one else.
Second, we will support Lagos State in the fight against fake certificates and unlicensed operators, because a compulsory scheme is only as strong as the integrity of the cover behind it.
Third, and let me state this very clearly, the Commission will support and insist upon a scheme architecture that is open, transparent, competitive, and accessible to all insurance operators duly licensed by the National Insurance Commission, Nigeria.
No compulsory insurance framework of this significance should be structured in a manner that excludes qualified licensed operators, creates undue monopoly, restricts fair market participation, or denies the insuring public the benefit of choice, capacity, innovation, and service competition.
The role of the regulator is to protect the policyholder, preserve market integrity, and ensure that every eligible operator who meets the Commission’s licensing, solvency, conduct, and claims-payment standards is given a fair opportunity to participate.
Fourth, we will treat this Scheme as a national reference point. If it succeeds here, and it must, it becomes the template by which other States across the Federation can protect their own citizens. Lagos, as so often, is lighting the path.
Conclusion
Let me close where I began. This is about people. It is about the market trader in Alakija, the family in Lekki, the worshipper, the tenant, the child asleep in a building that its owner did not think to insure. The measure of this Scheme will not be the size of the ceremony we hold today.
It will be the number of Lagosians who, on the worst day of their lives, discover that they are not alone and that there is cover, and there is recovery.
I commend the vision and the courage of His Excellency, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, and the diligence of the Office of the Special Adviser on e-GIS and Urban Development in bringing us to this day. The Commission stands firmly with the Government and people of Lagos State in this historic step for the safety of our people.
It is now my honour to lend the voice of the nation’s insurance regulator to this occasion, and to affirm, without reservation, the Commission’s full support for the Lagos State Building Insurance Scheme.
Thank you for your attention.
Olusegun Ayo Omosehin
Commissioner for Insurance/CEO
