 We're glad to know you're still there and watching the run-up. We're now being joined by Legal Luminary and an advocate for good governance and public affairs commentator. It's my pleasure to welcome Barista Jimmy Abia to the program. Welcome. Thank you very much, Sairangu. It's my pleasure. Our concerns, we're talking today with him about insurance and we understand that some fights that occur on our roads because sometimes you see traffic gridlock is caused by some people that have scratched themselves and all that. We're just wondering, minor accidents that can be avoided if the persons involved knew more about insurance and how to go about it. So what is it that they are missing? Why does it happen this way? Is there something that we need to know? Okay. Basically, the thing, like you mentioned, there are times that you see people fighting on the road because probably there was a scratch on one vehicle or the other. In this city, there's a lot of traffic. You get to encounter traffic a lot of times and within this traffic, you also have people who get into issues like having two cars scratch each other and they step down from their vehicles and exchange blows. But these are things that could have been avoided if people knew a bit more about insurance. They could have avoided some of these fights because there is the third party insurance which everybody is required. It's something that is encoded in law, that is mandatory, that this motor vehicle third party insurance is one of the insurance policies that every driver, every person who every vehicle owner must have. So in such instance, there's already a third party insurance. It is assumed that people should have, although what you have these days is that because people don't also understand the benefit they need for this insurance, either some people don't have it or some people engage others to get this for them, to get documents that sometimes are even fake. So because of that, you see these kinds of situations where people step down from their vehicles and take up a fight in the middle of the road. But like I mentioned, third party insurance should have taken care of that. Now, what is an insurance? An insurance policy is an insurance contract is a contract that guarantees you in the event of loss, damage, or any eventuality. That's what an insurance contract is meant to do for you. So where there is, in cases of third party insurance, motor vehicle insurance, for instance, where there is a damage to a third party's vehicle, then it is or even to an injury to a third party in terms of a crash, it is that insurance that is meant, that 5,000 insurance, incidentally, interestingly, people don't realize that that 5,000 insurance can give a cover for up to a million Naira. So you have that, with that alone, even when you don't have a comprehensive insurance, because what the comprehensive man does is to also protect you, you know, the car owner. But the third party insurance, now, who are the parties to the insurance? You have the vehicle owner, the vehicle owner who is insuring his vehicle. You have the insurance company who, so these are the first and the second parties. And the third party is the person who is not directly involved in this contract, but is affected by this contract which has been entered into. So that's the third party who is protected, you know, who the contract, the contract of insurance, you know, is to grant him some benefits to, you know, either to his vehicle, you know, or some injury. And usually it is up to, you know, a one million Naira cover. But comprehensive insurance does more than that. Now, amongst the insurance policies that are mandatory, you know, by law in Nigeria, you have the one I've mentioned, the motor vehicle third party insurance. You have the one which the NSITF, you know, oversees, which is the employer's liability, employee compensation, you know, insurance, which is the one provided for employees, you know, in terms of injury, in terms of illness, in terms of maybe in the event of death, you know, while, you know, working, putting in his service. Now, the employer is meant to be contributing 1% of the annual income, annual salary of the employees, you know, to the NSITF. And this is meant to be used, you know, for an event of these eventualities happening. Then you also have, you also have the group life assurance policy. We are, if any, if you own the owner of a company, the employer, you know, once you have up to five employees, you know, in your, in your employee, you need to take up the group life assurance policy. Now, what does it do? It gives a form of life insurance, you know, for the employees. So in event of also injury, in event of death, in event of any eventuality, it is meant to provide for either the person or the insured or even if it is there, you know, for the family, for the family of the person. So this is what the group life assurance policy, you know, is meant to do. Then there is also the professional indemnity medical insurance, which is in terms of, you know, in hospitals, there could be instances of negligence where a medical personnel, you know, is negligent in his job or for any other reason where a person who comes in, you know, to take medical services, you know, is, you know, has any, maybe in event of death of the person or maybe in event that, you know, due to negligence, there is, you know, further need for medical, you know, maybe a complication, you know, arising from this treatment, the initial treatment which the person had received. Then the person is, this professional indemnity insurance is what now will now be protected, you know, the person. Now you also have the occupiers liability. Now in terms of public buildings, hospitals, schools, other public buildings, even shopping malls, the owner or the occupier of that building is required to have this occupiers liability in terms of the persons, you know, thought parties who come into this building and maybe if there's, you know, maybe a fall, a crash or something or injury, you know, within the premises, this is the kind of insurance that protects those persons. Then there is also amongst true with this, there's also the builders' liability insurance, the builders' liability. So for anybody who is constructing any building which is more than two floors, you are required to have the builders' liability insurance, which is mandatory. Now I'm talking only about the strict, there are so many other kinds of insurance that may not be mandatory, but this is, these are the, you know, then you have the marine insurance for cargo, you have the aviation, thought party insurance, and then you also have, you know, I think I think that I've mentioned, you know, the basic mandatory insurance in Nigeria. Yes. I do know that insurance is very wide that we cannot just finish. That's why I try to restrict it because we already have a terrible situation when it comes to traffic in Lagos. And we've seen cases where because of a small splash, people come out and fight. Sometimes another accident occurs, someone dies. And like you said, these are things that insurance companies could have just done for them. Now we wonder why people are not able to access these insurance or people do not want to, because the complaint on the streets is that even if you have an insurance, you have an insurance policy or something, how do you call it? Accessing whatever funds, accessing whatever help from the insurance company would make you even spend more than what you required an insurance company to spend on the case that you're having. Is it that there are no laws that the government need to put in place? Or is the insurance companies themselves that are just being hydra-headed monsters or just being monsters generally and not doing what they're supposed to do? Actually, there are laws. In terms of insurance, first of all, there is the NICOM, the National Insurance Commission of Nigeria, which is meant to regulate insurance companies. Now, there's also the CBN. Of course, the CBN is the one that takes the deposit of their minimum. There's a minimum paid-off capital, which they need to have with the CBN. Now, this is meant to cover for times that they need to pay up some of the claims, which they may not have enough funds immediately to do. Then you also, that's why they keep this minimum deposit with the CBN. Then there is also the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission to also regulate and protect consumers of insurance, not just consumers of insurance, but consumers of products and services generally in Nigeria. But what you have is that there has been sort of an abdication of responsibility by these bodies, these agencies of government. We have had a number of instances where we have a seeming comivance also between some of these bodies and the insurance companies not to meet up with their responsibilities. So you have instances, a number of instances where you make complaints. Ordinarily, where you have issues of insurance companies defaulting from their responsibility. When you make reports to a body, the regulatory body, like NICOM, NICOM is meant to step in and take relevant actions in order to ensure that such is addressed. But what you have is a situation where it seems that there's a seeming negligence of duty and possibly even connivance. So this is one of the issues. So it's not entirely false when Nigerians say that the insurance companies do not keep to their responsibilities. Just for us to wrap up, I'd like to know if you were to advise government, because we're going to have a new government come into play in 2023. And there are things that maybe some of these people may not know that they need to do. If you were to advise government, what would you tell them to do? What policies do they need to put in place to make sure that either these relevant agencies sit up or insurance generally can be accessed by the ordinary man and we use it optimally? Yes, I think information is important. First of all, there is need, because I wonder what we used to have national organization agency. I think that it's important that information is passed across that the public would know the benefits of insurance, that they can actually get benefit from insuring their property, insuring themselves, taking life insurance, life assurance, other benefits. Then also to know, because even some, a lot of employees don't know about the social insurance trust, which is for them. Then also, government needs to be alive to its responsibility. The federal competition and consumer protection council needs to do a lot more. They need to do a lot more. They have powers already in the act. Then also the National Insurance Commission, National Insurance Commission, generally, they need to sit up and do better. That is what I expect that the coming government should ensure that these agencies work and that insurance companies are meant to keep to their responsibilities and that the public is generally informed about the responsibilities of insurance companies. Okay, if you've been there, I'm sure you're wishing now that we had more time to talk about this, but to avoid the fights that we see on the roads, to avoid the quarrels that we see on the roads, the mishaps that we see on the road. If you are religious about your, your insurance policies, a lot of these problems that we face on the roads can be solved by the insurance company. And Barisa has just mentioned a lot of agencies that are relevant or that can protect you when you find that the services you paid for are not rendered to you. But he also said something very instructive. If you're coming to governors in 2023, you should know that there's nothing that works without supervision. The laws are there. But if the people who are supposed to carry out the enforcement of these laws are not supervised well enough, whether in the education sector, whether agriculture, any sector of our economy, we might just find the kind of things that we are finding and then we blame it on the Nigerian factor. The Nigerian factor is really the people. So government at all levels, you're coming in 2023, know what to do. Well, Barisa, I wish we had more time, but the little time that we had, I'm very sure that it has triggered something in the minds of people. So thank you so much for coming. It's my pleasure. It's my pleasure. Okay, the run up continues tomorrow and we're hoping that you're going to join us tomorrow. Until then, stay fit, stay patriotic and bye for now.