The National Insurance Commission has directed insurance companies to submit their recapitalisation plans by September 30.

This was indicated in the exposure draft of the guidelines on minimum capital requirements for insurance and reinsurance companies in Nigeria, seen by The PUNCH over the weekend.

Following the signing of the Nigeria Insurance Industry Reform Act 2025, the regulator had inaugurated a recapitalisation committee charged with coming up with guidelines for the implementation of the recapitalisation process.

According to the guidelines cited by The PUNCH, insurance and reinsurance firms have up to the end of the month to submit their recapitalisation plans and other relevant information to the regulator.

“The plan shall include, among others: a. Board Resolution on how to comply with the relevant provisions of this Guideline and extant insurance laws. b. Capital status of the company as at the 2024 audited financial statements and 2nd quarter returns as at 30th June 2025, based on the requirements of this guideline. c. Detailed action plan on the amount(s) and source(s) of capital injection(s) with timelines and deliverables. d. Companies intending to seek funds from the capital markets are required to submit their plan of action on a file-and-use basis. e. Companies that intend to merge with or acquire another shall submit their proposal, after which they must comply with the relevant provisions of these Guidelines and the extant insurance laws. f. Portfolio Transfer and Run-Off Plan, where a composite company chose to discontinue a particular category of insurance business.”

Also, players are expected to submit the Recapitalisation Progress Report every month and not later than five working days after the end of each month.

“The progress report shall, among others, include the MCR status of the company computed in line with the template for MCR, achieved milestones and efforts made to meet the recapitalisation plan. Where a company has met the required MCR, it shall continue to submit the recomputed MCR status at the end of each month until the issuance of a licence, or such other time as the Commission may determine,” the guidelines indicated.

Section 14 of the guidelines mandates capital verification on insurance and reinsurance companies that have notified the regulator of compliance with the MCR.

“The notification shall be accompanied by relevant supporting documents. An insurer/reinsurer shall provide all relevant documents evidencing the existence, value, title, and ownership of assets that form part of the admissible assets for the purpose of MCR. An insurer/reinsurer shall provide an actuarial report by its external actuary on the valuation of its insurance policy liabilities and funds to meet other obligations as at the end of the quarter,” read part of the guidelines.

It was revealed that the capital verification exercises will commence on November 1, 2025, upon notification of compliance with MCR and shall be concluded not later than June 30, 2026.

Other key dates in the guidelines include June 30, 2026, when all directives arising from the capital verification exercise should have been complied with.

Insurance and reinsurance firms are supposed to have submitted evidence of payment of the statutory deposit to the Central Bank of Nigeria on or before May 30, 2026, with the final compliance date for the recapitalisation process being July 2026.

The composition of MCR for an existing company, as prescribed in Section 15(5) of the NIIRA 2025, is the excess of admissible assets over liabilities, less the amount of own shares held by the insurer. The admissible assets shall consist of cash and bank balances, tenured deposits with financial institutions, government bonds, treasury bills, corporate bonds (quoted), commercial papers, quoted equities, loans to policyholders, loans to agents, reinsurance assets, premium receivables (certified as received by external auditors), investment properties (at the lower of cost or fair value and not more than 20 per cent of MCR) and statutory deposit.

The newly signed Nigerian Insurance Industry Reform Act 2025 mandates new minimum capital requirements for insurance players, with life insurance firms expected to increase their capital to N10bn, non-life insurance to N15bn, and reinsurance companies to N35bn.