Abuja — The Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority has proposed a N50 million insurance compensation per person in any plane crash leading to death or injury.

This amount is expected to be paid within five working days.

At present, the compensation is about $100,000 (about N30 million), which some time takes months or years to pay.

To realise this, an aviation expert told LEADERSHIP last night that the civil aviation authority would in the next few weeks send a bill to the National Assembly for consideration in order to legalise the compensation.

For effective implementation of the policy, the aviation expert said five major insurance companies, including UBA Metropolitan Life Insurance, Intercontinental WAPIC and three others are being considered by the civil aviation authority.

"The insurance companies are expected to bring bank bond of N5 billion as deposits with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), so that when the affected insurance company defaults, the deposit with the CBN would be used to pay the victims," the source said.

Globally, experts say aviation insurance policies are governed by the nature of the market, which are subject to a number of factors that may not be in the interest of the insurer.

On the other hand, compensation of victims is hinged on international protocols and conventions that in many cases do not share the same vision with the local circumstances.

There are three types of insurances in aviation industry. The hull insurance, which covers the aircraft and is taken by the aircraft operators or the owners; crew, passenger, cargo and mail insurance that is governed by ICAO; and third party insurance that is put in place by the state.

Aviation experts say the importance of aviation insurance is a "global undertaking that features in the World Trade Organisation agenda; it is one of the items of trade that has been liberalized across national borders."