Afenifere Faults 200% Hike in Insurance Fee

Emameh Gabriel in Abuja

The pan-Yoruba socio-political organization, Afenifere, has called on the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) to rethink its proposed plan to increase the minimum insurance cover from N5,000 to N15,000.

The call was contained in a statement issued by the body’s National Publicity Secretary, Jare Ajayi, describing the decision as anti-people.

Afenifere in the statement lamented that the rationale behind the hike, “is difficult to fathom.”

Afeniferi’s reaction followed a directive issued by the Insurance Commission last Thursday, that private car owners who were paying N5,000 premium per vehicle for N1 million Third Party Property Damage (TPPD) limit, are now to pay N15,000 for N3 million TPPD, while staff buses owners are to pay N20,000 premium per vehicle for N3 million TPPD.

The increase is to affect other brands of vehicles that were supposed to take insurance covers.

The commission went further to warn that failure to abide by the new directive by insurance firms “shall attract appropriate regulatory sanction.”

But not pleased with the development, the Afenifere spokesman observed that, “some agencies of this government seem to derive pleasure in inflicting pains on the people of Nigeria.”

He added, “the Federal Ministries of Education and Labour as well as the Nigerian National Petroleum Company etc can be mentioned here.

“The National Insurance Commission now came up with an unprecedented hike of over 200 per cent in the amount of money a person has to pay to get the minimum insurance cover.

“This was done at a time when another government agency, National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) described 63 per cent of Nigerians (i.e. 133 million) as suffering multi-dimensional poverty just as unemployment is at an all-time high.

“With cost of living so high, with personal income dwindling so much and with uncertainty so pervasive, why would it be now that NAICOM would raise the cost of insurance premium? he asked.

“The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), in the 2022 Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) Report it launched last November in Abuja, had revealed that two out of every three Nigerians are poor and are experiencing about one quarter of all possible deprivations in terms of health, education, living standards, work and shocks,” he said further.

Ajayi said that part of the mandate of NAICOM was to protect insurance policy holders.

“But legion of Nigerians are lamenting the horrible experiences they are having in the hands of most of the insurance companies in the country.

“Many could not get their claims from their insurance companies despite several efforts made. Many died in the process while many abandoned the claims because they could not get it years after.

“Thus, NAICOM, which is prepared to ‘sanction’ insurance companies that fail to enforce the new tariff has not been known to sanction these companies when they fail to meet their obligations to their clients who make claims on them – thus raising the question as to whose interest exactly is NAICOM out to protect?”

He added that NAICOM ought to concern itself first with whether insurance companies were fulfilling their own side of the contract entered into with their clients before it arbitrarily jerked up the fee for insurance covers.

“It is a matter of serious concern to us that NAICOM, like some other government agencies here, appears to fatalistically gloat when policies are put in place to bring pain to Nigerians. Otherwise, why should motor owners be asked to pay 200 more than they have been paying for an insurance cover – especially when it is known that such high cost would be passed on to the poor Nigerians who patronise the motorists,” he said.