The Sierra Leone Insurance commission is currently finding itself on the spotlight over wide range of allegations.

In a recent interface with the media, the Deputy Commissioner, Sheku Mattia, called on the media to treat the allegations with a pinch of salt, as the intention is to derail gains made by the Commission over the years.

However, some of those allegations cannot be easily treated with a pinch of salt due to their serious nature. According to the allegations, Sierra Leone is no longer a member of the ECOWAS Brown Card Scheme due to refusal to pay membership contribution.

Allegations also have it that the 12 insurance companies and 9 insurance brokers, that the Commission is providing supervision, are notorious for not paying insurance compensation when and as the need arise. And as such, 22,000 Sierra Leoneans in the Sierra Leone Police, Military and Nurses stand seriously affected.

In defense of the grave allegations, the Deputy commissioner, Sierra Leone Insurance Commission, said the country’s membership was never suspended; only the country’s voting right was suspended.

The media, unto date, is deeply confused as to what negative effect the suspension of Sierra Leone from voting may have on the insurance industry and the nation as a whole. Sierra Leone’s debts, as at 2018 at the ECOWAS Brown Card Secretariat, amounted to 88,000,000 United States dollars.

According to the county’s Insurance commission, 39,830,000 dollars was paid in 2020. “We are a compliance nation,” Mattia said.

He said that the Commission had been asking the ECOWAS Brown Card Secretariat to furnish the Commission with detail breakdown of arrears, which, he disclosed, was not done by the Secretariat. “We attended meetings in 2018 and the relationship between us and the Secretariat is cordial,” Deputy commissioner said.

Mattia further disclosed that, on the 9th February this year, 20.000 dollars was also paid.

With regards the 22,000 citizens affected, the Commission said they are not aware of such a figure but promised to find out the truism of the allegation.

the issue of insurance companies’ and brokers; deliberate refusal to pay compensation continues to be a long-standing problem that cannot be unconnected to one among the major reasons why the Sierra Leone Insurance Commission was born. 17 years down the line, since the creation of the commission in 2008, it remains unable to eliminate or reduce the deliberate refusal by insurance companies and brokers to pay compensation.

It was the expectation of many that the Commission would have unveiled the long-standing secrecy that continues to engulf the insurance industry, but to no avail.

Public awareness on insurance policies, by insurance companies and brokers, is urgently need for the general public to be abreast with insurance policies, products and their benefits.

The insurance industry had, over the years, been accused of making available profitable insurance schemes to the rich and connected, while the non-profitable ones are normally dressed with insurance jargons to confuse the poor and unconnected.

And, as a result, sing up to an insurance policy that does not have provision for compensation.