Determined to deepen penetration and increase insurance uptake by majority of Nigerians, insurance companies are strategising to get a chunk of government’s budgetary allocation on disaster management and relief funds, Business Day investigations show.
The insurers plan to do this by designing disaster products that bring specific and comensurate reliefs to victims, and getting government to buy-into them, rather than giving ill-prepared charity gifts that often only scatch the suface and do not help victims recover their losses.
The insurers say this will take the burden of direct care off government and ensure that rather than gifts, disater victims get specific and measurable reliefs, through well thought out insurance products and packages.
This is coming on the heels of growing fire incidents across major markets in the country, especially during the dry season, which stakeholders are finding increasingly disturbing.
Insurers who spoke to BusinessDay last night, said with the current economic downturn caused by falling oil prices, it is no longer economical that government continue to spend scarce resources on payment of compensations which bring little relief, yet put a hole in its purse.
Kayode Okunoren, president, Nigerian Council of Registered Insurance Brokers (NCRIB) said, “We are not saying that government should give us the whole budgetary allocation on disaster management, but only a proportion of it for insurance coverage.”
Okunoren added, “We are not saying government should give us the whole relief fund, because ours is insurance. It’s a proportion of the value of the risk presented that you pay as premium. We are trying to tell government that they can concentrate their efforts on other things and leave this area for insurance people to take care of.”
He said his council has approached some state governors for partnership in this regard.
“For instance, when some calamities happen, you see government going there to sympathise, empathise and at the end of the day, they set up a relief fund. You and I know that maybe it’s only a small proportion of that fund that actually gets to those affected.
“What we are trying to say to government is this: partner with us, we can fashion out a kind of coverage which you will fund from a part of the relief fund. At the end of the day, you are not spending anything extra.”
In the last one year, no fewer than 100 markets across the country have been engulfed by fire, leading to loss of lives and billions of naira worth of assets , without insurance protection.
According to the Lagos State Fire Service, between January and September 2015, there were 45 fire incidents in Lagos markets. This means an average of about five fire incidents a month.
This year alone, no fewer than ten market fires have been recorded across the country, including the Jakande Market fire at Ikosi in Ketu area of Lagos, where over 100 shops were razed. There was also the Yola market fire in Adamawa state, where the inferno was believed to have consumed about 90 percent of shops.
Before now, several markets in the east, such as the popular Onitsha Main Market, Nnewi Market, Eke Awka, Ariara Market in Aba, Abia state, Enugu Timber Market, among others, had suffered fire disasters.
Sunday Thomas, director-general, Nigerian Insurers Association (NIA) during a recent sensitisation workshop organised by the Association’s Micro Insurance Committee, said insurance companies would continue to devise ways to entrench an insurance culture among market associations and traders.
Thomas, who lamented the growing incidence of market fires across the country, stated that government would need to partner with the industry to increase awareness and build insurance consciousness among the populace.
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