Stakeholders in the Nigerian Insurance industry have been charged to expand Insurance coverage in Nigeria, to cater for more vulnerable and non-vulnerable population, who have been inadvertently left out, especially in the informal sector.

This call has been repeatedly echoed by actuarial experts in Nigeria for a long time now. However, a Citizen, Mr Orjieh Ernest Oyemike, in a letter to Mr President, Muhammadu Buhari, and sighted by Eons Intelligence says it is high time the Government waded into the matter to prevent what he described as a reduction in the willingness of Nigerians to accept risks. 

He also called on Mr Presisent to come to the aid of Nigerians to increase the willingness to seek compensation from government whenever the need arises. All these he said will help reduce the frequency and severity of both natural and man-made disasters. He observed that there exists a direct relationship between these issues and the surge in avoidable disasters in the Counry.

Mr Oyemike stated that it is embarrassing and criminal for public buildings and places of worship to be exempted or allowed to recklessly disobey existing insurance laws in the country. He said this has led to the perpetual and preventable loss of lives in the most agonising manner. 

He sighted the the case of the collapsed place of worship at the Synagogue in Lagos, where more than One Hundred souls perished on the 12th of September, 2014. In a related development, he also drew attention to the church building collapse in Uyo which claimed more than 30 lives on the 10th of December, 2016. 

There were also shocking revelations about the lack of insurance policies in several building collapses and other incidents accross the Country. Eons Intelligence had reported how more than Forty people lost their lives in a collapsed 21-storey building in Ikoyi, Lagos. A bewildered country woke up to the news of the lack of an insurance policy in that particular incident. Other examples abound but these ones will suffice. 

Mr Oyemike also stressed the need for Nigeria to up the Insurance ante by implementing a proposed insurance policy under a "Family risk accumulation programme, which takes care of large aggregate losses from a single event, due to the concentration of all nuclear or extended members of a family who worship in an uninsured building."

He also said the National Association of Nigerian Traders have put the total amount of losses suffered by their members in the past Seventeen years at N5.3 Trillion. These, according to him include but not limited to the Yan' Kakato market fire incident on the 6th of February, 2019, the Ochanja market fire on the 17th of October, 2019 in Anambra as well as the one at Balogun market which took place in Lagos on the 6th of November in 2019. 

Mr Oyimike further stated that the implementation of these insurance laws will present a win-win situation for all stakeholders and citizens when fully implemented. He said if it comes to fruition, it will ensure that funds will be more readily available to compensate victims of general risk exposures and also reduce the compensation burden on government, each time something untoward happens. 

He also harped on the possibility of such laws to reduce the incessant cases of wanton and avoidable loss of lives and property throughout the nooks and crannies of the country. 

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