FEC approves 17 insurance underwriters for N17.3bn group life assurance scheme

The Federal Executive Council (FEC) Monday approved the appointment of 17 insurance underwriting firms to manage the Group Life Insurance Scheme for the 2025/2026 policy year.

Addressing State House correspondents at the end of the FEC meeting chaired by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Head of Civil Service of the Federation Mrs Didi Esther Walson-Jack said the policy covers the President, Vice President, ministers, senior officials and thousands of federal public servants.

She said the scheme, backed by a N17.3 billion budget allocation, provides life insurance coverage that pays out benefits to the next of kin of public servants in the event of death, offering financial relief to bereaved families in line with the Pension Reform Act 2014, which mandates employers to maintain life insurance policies covering at least three times an employee’s annual total emolument.

She said the government had increased the allocation to group life assurance by 80 per cent in the proposed Appropriation Bill for 2025.

She said N17.31 billion was allocated to “group life assurance for all MDAs including the Department of State Services/insurance of sensitive assets/members of the National Youth Service Corps, plus administration and monitoring.

“I would like to just quickly take you through the actual approval for today. The approval for today was for the appointment of 17 insurance underwriters for the group life insurance cover and for the year 2025/2026 as I had earlier mentioned.

“And the premium is paid to the insurance companies for the duration of 12 months. So this policy will expire next year. I just like to say that in as much as this policy has existed throughout this administration and even previous administrations, we find that not too many people know about the policy, and so we have, from my office, even planned to carry out a sensitization, which will be coming up very soon. But I’m so happy to be given the opportunity today to talk about this policy.

“This policy affects every public servant, and we are planning a sensitization campaign to raise awareness, as many are still unaware of this vital benefit,” she said.