NIA Unveils Campaign to Instill Insurance Culture
NIA Director General, Mrs. Yetunde Ilori
The Nigerian Insurers Association (NIA), has introduced a campaign “Wetin U Carry?” to educate motorists on the importance of regularly checking the status and the authenticity of their insurance policies.
The Director-General of NIA, Mrs Yetunde Ilori, in a chat with journalists in Lagos on Monday, to unveil the campaign which began in Lagos state on October 2, said the campaign will gradually extend to other states of the country.
She said the campaign would encourage motorist on the importance of regular checking of their insurance policies to know the genuineness and when it will expire to enable them renew it without waiting to be caught.
Mrs Ilori said, the figures by Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS), showed that there are about 12 million cars on Nigerian roads but only about 2.54 million vehicles are on the Nigerian Insurance Industry Database (NIID).
This, she said, is an indication that only about 2.54 million vehicles on Nigerians road carry genuine insurance cover.
The NIA DG said the new campaign is in support of Unstructured Supplementary Service Data, USSD Code *565*11# launched on January 10 this year.
NIA DG said 33 people have been detailed for the job to move from different locations in Lagos to ascertain the authenticity of motor insurance cover in the hands of policyholders.
“What we are looking at in this our campaign is that we have a slogan “Wetin U Carry?” That slogan is what we want to be in the lips of everybody so that by the time you see a vehicle, the next thing you say is “wetin you carry?
“Not in terms of expecting something from you, but to say, are you carrying the genuine motor insurance cover? Or you are having fake? And not necessary to the point of enforcing to the extent of punishing the person, but to say, you can have something valuable in your hands. If you are having the genuine insurance cover, it gives you peace of mind because in case of accident, you don’t need to take off your shirt and fight. What you need to do, is just to exchange details, give as much information as possible to the insurance company, and then you call upon them to settle your claim.”
“In launching this campaign, we are using different platforms, yours is very critical because your reach is beyond where we are starting the pilot run from. We are taking off from Lagos but it’s not going to be limited to Lagos. But ahead of us getting to other states that we plan to get into, we need you because whatever you release out there, is like going ahead of us and everybody will know that it is happening in Lagos and they will look forward to having us in their own different states.
“So this one is not coming with punitive measure, but to tell the public about the value of insurance and that if you carry a genuine insurance cover, there is a lot of relief for you and you don’t have to wait to be caught before you know that what you are having is not genuine.
“What usually happened when two people involved in an accident is that you think you are carrying insurance but by the time you bring it out, somebody will tell you that this is not genuine. We don’t want people to wait till then. We want as soon as you buy your insurance or you sent somebody to buy it for you, it doesn’t matter the sources from which you bought it from.
“We want people once they buy their insurance cover, they can quickly check and ascertain the status of their policies.
“The campaign will serve to remind policyholders to always check to know when their insurance cover is due for renewal.
“Sometimes because of so many things that we have to deal with, your insurance expires and you have forgotten, you can check and it tells you the expiry date,” she added.
She said the Insurance Squad are expected to interact with people in a friendly manner while checking the status of their insurance cover – telling them, your insurance is about to expire or has expired depending on the feed-back, and information from the USSD Code *565*11#.
