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Car-owners to pay more for motor insurance — Investigation

By on June 29, 2015

Premium being paid by motorists on the compulsory third party insurance will soon be increased, investigation by our correspondent has revealed.

For over a decade, underwriting firms had been selling the third party motor insurance for N5,000. This provides compensation to the sum of N1m in the event of accident caused to third parties.

Already, a committee has been set up for to review the motor insurance rate by the Nigerian Insurers Association.

The Director-General, NIA, Sunday Thomas, said the issue of rate had continued to engage the attention of members of the governing council.

“A committee was set up to review the rates on motor insurance business. The report of the committee requires the cooperation of brokers for the purpose of effective implementation,” he said.

According to him, this led to the establishment of the joint technical committee of the NIA and the Nigerian Council of Registered Insurance Brokers. He was optimistic that their report would go a long way in addressing market concerns.

Meanwhile, the Chairman, NIA, Mr. Gus Wiggle, also said that 41 insurance companies insured only three million vehicles as of May 2015.

This figure was obtained from its Nigerian Insurance Industry Database.

“As at May 2015, over three million vehicles have been uploaded by the 41 member companies underwriting motor insurance business,” he said.

He also worried that the industry was losing an estimate of N60bn annually to vendors of fake motor certificates.

Wiggle said the association continued to make giant strides in the implementation of the NIID.

More verification devices, he said, were distributed to member companies to enhance their marketing activities.

As fall-out of the public acceptance of the device, the chairman said the number of uploads had increased significantly over the past few years.

“The association will continue its drive to extend the states covered by the NIID device in order to bring more motor vehicles into the NIID net,” he said.

Following the observed leakages in marine business, he said the NIID was extended to curb the activities of fake marine certificate vendors.

According to him, the marine module of the NIID had become fully functional and member companies had started uploading their marine certificates.

Wiggle said the association had sustained the engagement with the relevant stakeholders such as Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria, Nigerian Council of Registered Insurance Brokers, Nigeria Customs Service and National Insurance Commission to seek their support for the initiative.

The aim, he explained, was to plug the leakages in import business resulting in loss of billions of naira premium accruable to the insurance industry.

“I am indeed delighted to report that to date, over 7,000 marine policies had been uploaded,” he said.

 

[Punch]