What NIIRA 2025 changed for Nigerian insurance
What the Nigerian Insurance Industry Reform Act 2025 replaced, what NAICOM's capital checks and new licences mean for brokers, and how to invoice fees.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Insurance businesses in Nigeria
For two decades, a Nigerian insurance broker could name the law that governed the business without thinking: the Insurance Act 2003, with the older motor and marine statutes behind it. That is no longer the answer. The Nigerian Insurance Industry Reform Act 2025, NIIRA 2025, has replaced them, and the regulator has been re-licensing insurers under its capital rules.
For brokers, agents and the businesses they insure, the change is not only legal housekeeping. It affects which insurers you can safely place business with, how you explain the market to clients, and the paperwork you keep. This piece walks through what NIIRA 2025 replaced, what NAICOM has been doing under it, and what a brokerage should check and record.
The regulator and who answers to it
The National Insurance Commission describes itself as the apex regulatory authority for Nigeria's insurance sector. It lists those it oversees as insurers, reinsurers, takaful and microinsurance companies, insurance brokers, loss adjusters, web aggregators and agents.
That list includes your own brokerage. The reform is not only about the insurers you place business with; it is about the whole chain, and NAICOM's guidance applies to intermediaries as well as to the companies that carry the risk.
The laws NIIRA 2025 brings together
NAICOM says NIIRA 2025 consolidates and repeals several earlier insurance laws, including:
- the Insurance Act 2003;
- the Marine Insurance Act 2004;
- the Motor Vehicles (Third Party Insurance) Act 1945;
- the National Insurance Corporation of Nigeria Act 1969;
- the Nigeria Reinsurance Corporation Act 1977.
In practice, that means references to the old Acts in your own documents are out of date. Look through your client agreements, terms of business, proposal forms and website wording, and replace references to the repealed Acts with NIIRA 2025 where your legal adviser agrees. A broker whose terms still cite a repealed law looks careless at exactly the moment a client is deciding whom to trust.
New licences for insurers that meet the capital rules
NAICOM has been issuing new licence certificates to insurers it has confirmed and verified as meeting the minimum capital requirements under NIIRA 2025.
For a broker, that turns a general question ("is this insurer sound?") into a specific one: has this insurer been issued a new licence certificate under the reform? Before placing new business, and before renewing a client with an insurer you have not checked this year, confirm its status with NAICOM. Record the date of the check and what you found on the client file.
If an insurer you use has not yet been re-licensed, that is a conversation to have with the client, in writing, before renewal rather than after a claim.
Clients will ask why it matters. A plain explanation works best: the reform sets minimum capital requirements for insurers, NAICOM is confirming which insurers meet them, and your brokerage checks the result before recommending anyone. That is a reason to use a broker, not a complication.
The Policyholders' Protection Fund committee
NAICOM reports that Nigeria's insurance premium reached ₦2.3 trillion while industry assets rose to ₦4.8 trillion, and that it inaugurated an Insurance Policyholders' Protection Fund (IPPF) Committee on 15 May 2026.
The committee's work is aimed at the people your brokerage serves: the policyholders. Clients who have been let down by an insurer in the past may ask what protection exists now. The honest answer is to point them to what NAICOM publishes about the fund as it develops, rather than promising anything on its behalf.
Checking an insurer before placing business
A short routine to run before placing or renewing business:
- Confirm the insurer is one NAICOM oversees and that it holds a licence issued under NIIRA 2025.
- Note the check and its date on the client file.
- Explain to the client, in writing, any concern about the insurer's status.
- Repeat the check at each renewal, not only when the relationship starts.
The same discipline applies to other intermediaries you work with, such as loss adjusters, since they are on NAICOM's list too.
Invoicing broker fees from a Nigerian workspace
Where your brokerage charges clients a fee on top of commission, the fee is invoiced like any other sale. In Achekam, a workspace registered as Nigerian at sign-up makes the Nigeria pack its default and, on activation, sets the naira (NGN) and the Africa/Lagos time zone unless already set.
A Nigerian business picks a tax code on each invoice line: standard, zero-rated, exempt, out of scope or reverse charge. Only standard lines carry VAT, at the approved rate for its country. This applies once the country pack is activated under Settings, Jurisdiction & regulators. Confirm the right code for your fees with your tax adviser and use it consistently. Nigeria's recent tax changes are summarised in what changed in Nigeria's tax reform.
Invoices start as drafts you can change or delete. Issuing one takes the next number in the sequence and posts it to the ledger as debtors, sales and output VAT, with default terms of 30 days unless you change them. The fee reaches the books the moment it is issued, without anyone retyping it. Invoicing broker fees covers the wording and timing of fee invoices.
NAICOM's website carries its regulatory guidance, the lists of licensed insurers, brokers, loss adjusters and agents, and its announcements on NIIRA 2025.
Update the references in your own documents, check the status of each insurer you place business with, and keep a dated note of every check. That is most of what the reform asks of a careful broker.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
