12 million Nigerian motorists carry fake insurance papers

Reports say only about 4.3 million of the vehicles plying Nigerian roads have valid insurance certificates.

Most motorists are endangering the lives of other road users by driving vehicles on Nigerian roads without appropriate insurance certificates, investigation has revealed.

Instead of procuring valid certificates that would provide insurance cover and compensation for road users in times of accident, a large number of the motorists buy cheap papers from fraudsters in unauthorised areas.

However, operators in the insurance industry are collaborating with law enforcement agencies to end the fake certificate business in the country.

The Director-General, Nigerian Insurers Association, Mr. Sunday Thomas, said the industry had continued to record increase in the number of genuine insurance policies registered in its Nigerian Insurance Industry Database.

“The vehicles on Nigerian roads are estimated to be between 16 million and 17 million, but what we have registered in our database is about 4.3 million vehicles,” he said.

Thomas also explained that out of these 4.3 million, it was possible that the insurance covers of some had expired and had not been renewed.

He added that the association was trying to separate the expired policies from the current ones so as to determine the actual number of vehicles with genuine insurance.

Thomas explained that the NIID was introduced to curb the proliferation of fake motor insurance papers, provide information on the details of vehicles available on Nigerian roads, as well as enhance the verification of certificates in owners’ possession.

According to him, a motorist can check his motor insurance policy status by sending his vehicle details as an SMS to a dedicated NIID number or through the database’s website.

As of October 2014, he noted that only 2.7 million vehicles had been registered in the NIID, which was an improvement from a figure of about one million in the corresponding period of 2013.

According to him, all registered insurance companies operating in Nigeria subscribe to the NIID and they regularly upload the details of vehicle covers that they handle onto the database.