On the chosen day June 26, 2012, the Nigerian Insurance Industry Database was launched at Shell Hall, Muson Centre, Onikan, Lagos. Critical stakeholders were in attendance such as the Nigeria Police, Federal Road Safety Corps, the Nigerian Council of Registered Insurance Brokers (NCRIB) and private road workers unions. Then the chairman of the Nigerian Insurers Association (NIA), was Olusola Ladipo-Ajayi.
Over ten years since it incepted, the project has grown from base figure of over 500,000 vehicle insurance policies on the database with a daily average upload of 200 records to about 3.6 million vehicle insurance policies in current records.
At a press conference before the launch on Friday, June 6, 2012, Ladipo-Ajayi in his briefing, explained that NIID is “an information technology based system that will facilitate easy collation and dissemination of of statistical and other information relating to insurance on one hand, and also serves as a vehicle for easy identification of genuine insurance documents by relevant authorised persons.”
Some of the foundation benefits of the system NIA outlined included monitoring and authenticating insurance transactions documents and also, reducing incidences of fraudulent transactions and policies most especially for motor and marine policies.
Other benefits drilled in include reducing red tape and corruption by integrating with the vehicle registration system of the Federal Road Safety Commission, the Police and other relevant government agencies, and, ensuring easy access to statistical data for effective decision making.
As it stands today, the NIA Director General, Mrs. Yetunde Ilori, savid the giant leaps of NIID is aiming at crossing the 4 million mark. She said the industry has resonated around 3 million and moving to 3.6 million.
Confident Ilori said the 4 million plus mark is within reach this year. She rests it on the adjusted motor insurance premium effective January 1, 2023, “with what we see with the adjusted third party premium, companies are planning to hit at least a combined 4.5 million this year.
“The reason is this, with the awareness created around the adjusted premium, we believe a lot more premium will be brought into the net, … With the collaboration with law enforcement agencies, the media, the awareness over the years will bring in a kind of result that we have not witnessed before.”
Still exuding confidence, Ilori said there is high anticipation that “we will move up.” She reckons that the public attention is revolving and concerned that the third cover policy works and it is real beyond just keeping the policy but enforcing it to get claims paid at the point of risk happening.
The NIA boss said the NIID project has crossed the threshold of sustainability and this year is going the mark the push to get more. In the bid to get more, the Association and the National Insurance Commission, have widened the limits of engagement to include the states buy-in and all these happening and sustained she reiterated, would result in something more significant this year.
