Making ‘Third Party’ motor insurance work for us

Firstly, and importantly, let us understand that ALL vehicles on the road are required to have the Third Party Motor Insurance Policy, which safeguards other vehicles and properties as well as the occupants, in the event of accidents.

My Third Party Motor Insurance Policy is to compensate you while yours is to compensate me, if there is an accident.

Today, ENHANCED Third Party Motor Insurance policies are on offer to ensure compensation for both parties when accidents occur.

Secondly, based on this understanding, it is the responsibility of the owners of vehicles to ensure that they get GENUINE insurance for their vehicles, so that the compensation mentioned earlier can be paid to the affected parties.

Like in several aspects of our lives, there are FAKE Third Party Motor Insurance Certificates issued by fake operators who even send fake SMS to inform you that your insurance details have been added to the Nigerian Insurance Industry Database (NIID)!

Yes, you can visit www.askniid.org to verify the status of your Third Party Motor Insurance Policy but quite sadly, many of us do not give it the attention, and merely discover upon the occurrence of an accident that the Certificate we have had, is non-existent and fake.

We can always save ourselves from the agony of a later date by taking a few minutes today to verify the status of our Third Party Motor Insurance Policy.

Next, know that there are about 13 million registered vehicles in Nigeria but only about 4.5 million have GENUINE Motor Insurance (Third Party and Comprehensive covers), while nearly nine million are either UNINSURED or bearing FAKE certificates; meaning that at any time they are involved in accidents, there will not be compensation for their victims.

It is possible that your vehicle or the one you are inside is one of the uninsured or one with fake certificates, and it is always better to verify before the unexpected happens.

All GENUINE Third Party (Private) Motor Insurance Policyholders enjoy TWO SPECIFIC BENEFITS, you should know, whenever we put our vehicles on the road: 1) Access to N3 million to repair or replace any part of the other person’s vehicle or property that would have been damaged during the accident you caused.

2) Access to medicare for an unlimited amount to cater for bodily injuries to persons in the other vehicle or property.

This should be the topmost reason for getting a Third Party Motor Insurance Policy and not just for having the Law Enforcement Officers on the road allow you to continue your journey. Imagine for a moment how many lives we lose daily through road accidents and victims or families of deceased live WITHOUT COMPENSATION because the vehicles involved were either uninsured or ones with fake insurance certificates.

The negative impact of having uninsured vehicles and the ones with fake certificates on our roads are diverse and enormous. Families and MSMEs have been sent into poverty and failures respectively due to non-compensation after road accidents.

Third Party Motor Insurance, and indeed ALL classes of insurance, had been designed to enable us display responsible behaviours whilst putting our vehicles on the road but poor understanding of the benefits described above have made us continue to consider the option of fighting and manhandling one another when accidents occur.

Unfortunately, such fights leave us and our businesses with irredeemable losses or damages regarding our personal or corporate brands and market development.

Depending on your understanding of the benefits of Third Party Motor Insurance, you will interpret the following story fittingly or otherwise.

A well-known Nigerian conglomerate with a huge number of trucks on Nigerian roads had Third Party Motor Insurance Policy for all its trucks, knowingly, because theirs would most likely run into other vehicles or properties on the road.

Annually, their insurers had been honouring their third party claims and also bear the costs of training and retraining their drivers and fleet managers.

Situations like this have not only created opportunities for insurance companies to partner and collaborate with other service providers but also endured improvements in the quality of experiences shared amongst insurance stakeholders.

If we can make the Third Party Motor Insurance work effectively for those who put their vehicles on the road daily and those aboard them, we will be directly contributing to the well-being and good mental health of Nigerians.

We should begin to have Motor Insurance on our minds as we arrive at accident scenes to ensure that victims are duly compensated. Vehicles on our roads without insurance should pay fines and persons who board them may be denied part of their compensation where necessary.

Let us get ready to make Third Party Motor Insurance work for us now and into the future by holding ourselves accountable.

• business a.m. commits to publishing a diversity of views, opinions and comments. It, therefore, welcomes your reaction to this and any of our articles via email: comment@businessamlive.com