The aftermath of October 2020 #EndSARS protest in Nigeria and subsequent loss experienced by businesses and institutions have exposed the level of vulnerability and lack of appreciation of insurance in this part of the world.
#EndSARS protest, the first of its kind in Africa’s most populous nation, was a protest against a dreaded police unit – the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) that was later disbanded, but extended to be protest against all that was not good in governance and public service, with two weeks of demonstration using the social media hashtag #EndSars to rally crowd.
At the end of the exercise, Nigeria witnessed damages to assets and properties belonging to both private and public businesses and institutions running into billions of naira, cutting across banks, shopping malls, markets, police satiations and public transportation system.
If Nigeria is a society where insurance is given priority, the insurance industry would have been hit heavily as most policy holders who suffered losses would have filed claims to recoup part of their investments that got lost in the protest.
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But the situation unfortunately is different here, as many of the victims of the #EndSARS did not have insurance for their assets and businesses, and where they had, it was not adequately insured.
Though insurers have expressed their readiness to pay all genuine claims that would arise from the #EndSARS damages, but feelers are that most victims did not insure and where they insured, they were not adequately insured.
What this means is that most of the insurances were not with policy extension for riot and civil unrest, which should have covered the #EndSARS kind of losses.
According to insurance operators, only insurances with extension for riot, vandalism and civil commotions will be honoured, so this does not cover ordinary normal policies.
Daniel Braie, managing director/CEO, Linkage Assurance plc, notes that the #EndSARS incident is only covered under policy extension like riot, civil commotion and other kinds of unrest.
In this even, a lot of the victims will not be able to claim from insurance, except the insurance companies decided to compensate on ex-gratia (you do not merit but we can assist you) for a number of reasons.
According to Augustine Ebose, managing director/CEO, Anchor Insurance plc, “We have noticed that a lot of policy holders do not have adequate insurance. Some took the normal policies without taking an extension, which should cover events like riot and civil unrest.”
Such policy holders can only get compensation, may be by ex-gratia, Ebose states, but, then, this is on condition that they will remain with their insurer as customers, and again if they have stayed with the insurer for a long time.
He says going forward, insurers will have to clearly specify to their customers the need to have policy extensions so that in situations like this they can make claims.
Ganiyu Musa, chairman, Nigerian Insurers Association (NIA), had given assurance that all policyholders both individuals and businesses with valid insurance policies that have been paid for would be duly compensated as all members of the NIA would indemnify and provide them the necessary pay out in line with the terms of their policies.
He said, “Policyholders with valid claims have nothing to fear. This is why you took insurance, for times as these. For those that have not taken or do not have any form of insurance policy, this is the best time to do so because this is the essence of insurance.”
Industry experts expect that beginning from 2021, purchase of insurance will look at extension of covers so that in the event of such damages due to riot and civil unrest, victims can be compensated adequately.
The Nigerian insurance industry at the end of 2019 generated total premium income of N490 billion, a growth 15.5 percent from N413.8 billion in 2018, with larger part of the premium coming from corporate clients and less from individuals and small and medium scale enterprises.
