Home BusinessBanking Nigeria: Insurance Bill to Save Insurers N48 Billion Annually

Nigeria: Insurance Bill to Save Insurers N48 Billion Annually

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Lagos — Insurance industry is set to gain about N48 billion the sector is losing to fake and about 9.6 million uninsured vehicles on Nigerian roads annually. But this can only come to be if the Consolidated Insurance Bill 2020, before the National Assembly (NASS) can become law, LEADERSHIP can exclusively reveal.

The bill already prescribed N5 million fines for fake insurance racketeers as well as heavy sanctions for the uninsured.

These, according to market observers, will force defaulting motorists to go for genuine insurance certificates, thereby, yielding N48 billion premium income to the insurance industry.

While believing this is a good development for an industry that is struggling to reach N1 trillion annual premium income target, experts advised the National Assembly as well as the federal government to, as a matter of urgency, ensure that the bill becomes law.

The Nigerian Insurers Association (NIA) had earlier disclosed that there are currently 12 million registered vehicles on roads across the country with five million of the cars residing in Lagos State. Of this number, the association regretted that only 2.36 million are currently insured, believing, if the bill becomes law and provisions there-in are enforced, the insurance industry can grow its annual premium income astronomically.

The 2.36 million insured vehicles, it was learnt, have all been registered on the Nigerian Insurance Industry Database (NIID) by their respective insurers.

Investigation shows that some of these 9.64 million vehicles parade fake motor insurance papers, while some did not have any insurance coverage even as few who had genuine insurance papers before have failed to renew when their previous motor insurance cover expired.