Road Carnage: Experts Call for Compulsory Travellers’ Insurance

Following the frequent cases of road accidents on the country’s highways, insurance experts have called on the federal government to introduce compulsory insurance cover for all travellers on the country’s roads.

One of the Insurance experts and Managing Director of Top Brackets Insurance Brokers, Mr. Alex Onyenike,  noted that beside the need for drivers’ carefulness on the wheels, “the need to have compulsory insurance cover for all travellers has become imperative”.

He explained further that the insurance premium should be easily affordable by all passengers and should be built into the ticket cost for all travellers.

This, he stressed, will enable the insurance companies to pay “reasonable compensation” to travellers of their families in case of injury or death on the highway, respectively.

Onyenike, an experienced broker, emphasised that the onus is on the Ministry of Transportation to introduce a policy that will make the scheme compulsory and easily enforceable by all public transport operators.

“It is only when government makes it compulsory that the law enforcement agencies, including the Federal Road Safety Corps can enforce the policy by checking on the compliance level among drivers of public transportation companies and by implementing it in a way that its adoption is not negotiable by transport operators, just like they implemented the compulsory speed-limit device”, Onyenike said.

Similarly, Mr. Olalekan Aluko, an experienced insurance chief, stressed that if the federal government was keen on both reducing highway carnages and also providing some succor to families of accident victims, “the travellers’ insurance scheme is the way to go”

Aluko pointed out that major transport companies like Greyhound, National Express, First Group, in the United States of America, have long adopted the policy of travellers’ insurance, pointing out that, “and that is where greater road caution applies”, adding that “if in such climes, travellers’ insurance is taken as a given, then we in Nigeria should embrace it without further delay”.

The insurance experts lamented that the incidences of road accidents in Nigeria have become too frequent and incessant thus making the need for insurance cover for passengers an imperative policy, “so that if and when it (accident) happens, there is some reasonable compensation to victims”.