Director-General, Nigerian Insurers Association, Mr. Sunday Thomas
About 8.75 million vehicles plying Nigerian roads are without genuine insurance certificates, investigation has revealed.
As of Monday, only 2.7 million vehicles had been registered by licensed insurance firms under the Nigerian Insurance Industry Database.
The Director-General, Nigerian Insurers Association, Mr. Sunday Thomas, confirmed the figures to our correspondent during an exclusive interview.
“About 2.7 million vehicles have been registered under the NIID,” Thomas said, adding that the figure was, however, a significant improvement from the more than a million vehicles recorded in the corresponding period of 2013.
According to data obtained from the NIA, 11.4 million vehicles were registered across the states by the Federal Road Safety Corps in 2012.
Section 68 of the Insurance Act, 2003 states, “No person shall use or cause or permit any other person to use a motor vehicle on a road unless a liability, which he may thereby incur in respect of damage to the property of third parties, is insured with an insurer registered under this Act.’
It further explains that the insurance shall cover liability of not less than N1m.
According to the Act, a person who contravenes the provisions commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a fine of N250,000 or imprisonment for one year, or both.
Thomas noted that the NIID provided information on the details of insured vehicles available on Nigerian roads as well as helping in the verification of fake insurance certificates.
The director-general, who observed that lots of motorists were in possession of fake motor insurance certificates, said that it was mandatory for all vehicle owners to have a minimum of third party motor insurance certificate before putting their vehicles on the road.
He added that policyholders whose vehicle insurance details had been uploaded onto the NIID could check their policy status through the Short Message Service and on the Internet.
According to him, mobile telephone handsets are being given to law enforcement agencies and insurance company officials to verify the status of motor insurance certificates.
He said that the NIID would help to weed out fake motor insurance certificates in the country, while also providing information on the details of vehicles available on Nigerian roads.
During a recent visit to the NIA, the Corps Marshall and Chief Executive Officer, Federal Road Safety Corps, Mr. Boboye Oyeyemi, expressed the determination of the organisation to continue to support the NIID project in order to promote the culture of safety on the roads.
The FRSC boss said that with effective collaboration between the association and FRSC, the nation could now boast of a database of motor vehicles in the country.
“I can confidently say that the partnership between the insurance industry and the FRSC is working well. Nigeria can now boast of a database of motor vehicles insured in Nigeria, and this can assist the government in making forecasts and planning for national development,” he had said.
Oyeyemi urged the association to step up its enlightenment and stakeholder engagement initiatives to get more Nigerians to procure genuine insurance products and eliminate touting.
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