Nigeria’s 8.6m vehicles without insurance, risk sanctions

Of the 12 million vehicles registered in Nigeria, 8.6 million of them have no genuine third party motor insurance as provided under the law.

The alarming figure is coming from Nigerian Insurance Industry Data Base (NIID) set up by the Nigerian insurance industry to capture insured vehicles, and to assist law enforcement agents monitor compliance.

The NIID revealed that out of the 12 million vehicles, only 3.4 million are captured in the system as having genuine insurance.

This means that the rest are either not having insurance or having one that is obtained from non genuine actors.

To ensure that compliance becomes effective across the country, the NIA is working with Lagos State government in the enforcement and validation of genuine compulsory third Party insurance made mandatory by Law through Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) device of VIS through NIID Verification Platform.

Ganiyu Musa, chairman of NIA said at \ press briefing in Lagos that, at the end of January 2022, the NIID shows that 3.4 million vehicles have complied with compulsory motor third party policy.

Musa said the partnership with Lagos State will be replicated in other parts of the country so that people can be sure that what they have and carry as insurance is only from genuine and registered insurance companies.

Data from the National Bureau of Statistics show that in 2018, the number of Registered Vehicles was 4,868,294.129 for private, 6,799,586.156 for commercial; and 5,912.18 for diplomatic.

According to the NIA, motor Third Party Insurance for private vehicles is N5, 000.000, though at the moment they are undergoing a review.

The benefits of having a third party insurance policy is to protect vehicle owners against third party damage – either property, life or both, and it is made compulsory in the Insurance Act 2003.

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This means that in the event of an accident occurring, the policy holder has a third party property damage limit up to N1 million and no limit to life in the case of death or permanent disability.

Now, if your policy document is not captured in the NIID, then that policy document you have as a motor third party insurance certificate is fake and worth nothing, the NIA said.

“You can actually verify it yourself, right from anywhere you are. This has not only brought a check to fake documents, it has now empowered you to make claims on all third party liabilities.”

To verify your motor policy document, the NIA directs that owners of vehicles should simply apply this code into a GSM handset, and in seconds, the status of your insurance is displayed on the screen.

“(SMS: policy number*plate number to 33125).This is compliant with all networks.

If the resultant message says, “not available on NIID database, then know that what you are parading as insurance is fake.

But if it’s there, it tells you immediately the name in which your vehicle is registered; the make and model of the vehicle; the colour of the vehicle; name of the insurance company and date of expiration of the policy.

“Verifying the authenticity of your vehicle insurance policy on the NIID gives you peace of mind and assurance that your claim will be paid”, the NIA further stated.

“If you do not buy from any of the insurance companies, registered and licensed by the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM), it is possible that you buy a fake document in the name of insurance. So, vehicle licensing offices are not insurance companies’ offices and touts are there with fake documents to sell to you and this denies you the right to make claims when there is liability, said an insurance expert.