Flood victims file claims as insurers pay over N168m in 2015

By Rosemary Onuoha

INSURED victims of floods that ravaged some parts of Lagos State recently are already filing their claims, even as insurance companies paid N168.44 million claims on flood mishaps in 2015.

Chairman of Nigerian Insurers Association (NIA), Mr. Eddie Efekoha, said that the insured victims have started turning in their claims to the insurance companies where their properties were insured.

He said that flood is often an extension of fire cover, adding that most insurance companies do offer the cover for free, especially in areas not prone to flood. According to the NIA 2015 Insurance Digest, over 20 claimants filed flood claims in 2015, amounting to over N168.44 million.

The report revealed that International Energy Insurance Plc, paid the largest claim of N23.11 million, followed by Ensure Insurance Plc, which paid N22.56 million.

Also, the NIA says it got N160.47 million as proceeds from data upload on the Nigerian Insurance Industry Database (NIID) in 2016.

According to the association’s 2016 financial report, the balance in the account of the NIID as at the beginning of the year was N62.12 million, N225,000 was received and N1.23 million stood as interest accrued on the account. Accordingly, its balance as at December 31, 2016 was N69.27 million.

The Association noted that over 8 million motor insurance certificates have been captured on NIID within the period of six years even as the platform has ran consistently hitch-free in the last 12 months.

“The motor module has effectively changed the face of insurance business in Nigeria as incidences of fake motor insurance certificates have drastically reduced. The system features are constantly being enhanced to meet user’s requirements and expectations. In the period under review, additional features to the system include: upload of short term policies; SMS alert of claims upload; mobile app of ask NIID and enhanced reporting facility,” the Association maintained.

Efekoha stated that in the Association’s desire to extend the coverage of the NIID to other states of the federation, it encountered the challenge of network coverage and internet connectivity, adding that the association is taking steps to resolve the issue through the deployment of Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) code.

He noted that the marine module has been running and member companies are daily uploading on the platform, adding that at the end of May 2017, 33 member-companies have uploaded 65,000 marine policies.

He urged members to continue to upload their marine policies, stressing that plans are being made to bring other stakeholders into the scheme.

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