Just In: Experts call for compulsory travellers’ insurance against road accidents ®

Insurance

Following the high and frequent cases of road accidents on the nation’s highways, insurance experts have called on the Federal Government to introduce compulsory insurance cover for all travellers on the nation’s roads.

The Managing Director, Top Brackets Insurance Brokers, Alex Onyenike, noted that besides 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 will enable the insurance companies to pay “reasonable compensation” to travellers or their families in the event of injury or death on the highway, respectively.
 
Onyenike, an experienced broker emphasized 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 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, Olalekan Aluko, an experienced insurance chief, argued that if the federal government was keen on reducing highway carnages, and also providing some succour 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, noting that, “and that is where greater road caution applies.”

He argued that “if in such climes, travellers’ insurance is taken as a given, then Nigeria should embrace it without further delay.”

The insurance experts decried that 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.”