Only a paltry five million vehicles with genuine insurance policies captured on the Nigeria Insurance Industry Database (NIID) have legitimate insured vehicles in Nigeria.
The development shows how widespread the problem of fake vehicle insurance and their promoters have covered the country, where motor vehicles are numbering in hundreds of millions.
This was disclosed in Lagos by the Chairman, Nigerian Insurers Association (NIA), Eddie Efekoha, who stressed that the NIID has really impacted positively on the operations of insurance companies.
Efekoha noted that though the number of vehicles captured falls below expectations, going by the number of vehicles in the country, the industry will sustain the drive to capture all vehicles plying the nation’s roads.
He said the association is forging ahead with the implementation of the Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) code, adding that discussions between the association and Nigerian Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS), for deployment of the USSD have progressed significantly and an inter-agency publicity committee has been put together between NIA and NIBSS with a view to publicising the project to engender public support and acceptability.
He maintained that when fully operational, the USSD code is expected to close the gap encountered in the operation of the NIID as the code will not require Internet connectivity for verification of motor insurance certificates across the country.
On the industry’s rebranding project, he explained that the project is at the heart of the Governing Council of the association, stressing that although the project was initiated by the Insurers Committee, the association fully supports it and has continued to mobilise its members to do likewise.
“We are convinced that members stand to benefit immensely from the initiative,” he said.He said the association is working with KPMG to developed a 10-year transformation roadmap for the industry and that the roadmap together with similar works by other arms of industry are undergoing harmonisation under the auspices of the Insurers Committee.
“I strongly believe that the implementation of this plan when concluded, would bring about the much-awaited growth to our industry,” he said.On the association’s secretariat construction, he noted that the construction of the seven-storey building will soon commence as over N500 million has been realised for the project.
“You would recall that in my acceptance speech following my election as 22nd Chairman of our noble association, I promised to give further impetus to the development projects initiated by my predecessor, notable among which is the new NIA house project.
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