NIB aims for digital transformation in 2 years

Executive Director of the National Insurance Board of TT (NIB) Niala Persad-Poliah has said the board is hoping to digitally transform its paper-based system within two years.

Persad-Poliah made the statement last Thursday during a public accounts committee inquiry into the audited financial statements of the NIB for the financial years 2014 to 2020.

She said the board was still in the procurement stage of a new information and communication technology (ICT) system.

“With covid19, most of the due diligence and site visits had to be done virtually but the site visits are completed (and) we do have a recommendation that we are ready to advance to our ICT committee with respect to the engagement of a vendor.”

She said the new system would revolutionise and transform the operations of NIB, from submission of a claim to actual payment of funds into contributors’ accounts.

Persad-Poliah said the 49-year-old organisation is still highly paper-based, but the digital transformation will remedy that.

She said the board had other digitisation exercises going on.

“While we do have internal systems that will allow for the digitisation and capture of records that come in, we have also engaged external providers to support us on that and that project is ongoing with an end date of February, where we expect to have approximately 13 million records updated and uploaded to our system alongside internal division that continues to update records.”

She said the NIB serves over 600,000 people with incoming data in paper form. She said, as part of its transformation, the board plans to finalise a date where employers would move to online submissions that would support a faster turnaround time for claims and importing records and the new ICT system will facilitate that.

She said the NIB currently has online portals where contribution statements can be checked, and online payments can be made.

“With covid19, we have made some facilities available already. Payments can be made online, there is an online appointment system, (and) employers can also get compliance certificates online.

“Our new ICT system will give us much more. We expect to award the contract in 2022 and the implementation phase is just about 23 months for entire operations.”