Chris Agabi
28 September 2008
interview
Lagos — Before OSCAR was born in September last year, victims of hit and run drivers go uncompensated. Now uninsured victims get compensated. But contrary to beliefs that it is only in Abuja that such compensations could be made, Mr. Joshua Umukoro, consultant on the Servicom Road Safety Pilot, in this interview, explains how other Nigerians in other states can benefit from OSCAR compensation initiative; and why OSCAR's role is not in conflict with NAICOM, among others. Excerpts:
Have you encountered insurance companies who are unwilling to pay claims to hit and run victims? If yes, how have you been able to work through it?
Truthfully, they have been very cooperative. Like I said, they are part of the presidential committee and also attend most of the meetings of the steering committees and the subcommittees of OSCAR. We have been working harmoniously. But there are some challenges that we had to deal with. For instance, their priority at a time in the course of the project was to see that they are recapitalised, while we had a drive to ensure that the project takes off. To surmount the challenges, we had to develop ways of dealing with some issues. For instance, the issue of VISA was a challenge to the industry because the insurance industry didn't have a standard motor insurance certificate. They use to have in the form of VISA but it was discontinued.
Where you have a situation in which over 41 insurance companies underwriting motor insurance have their insurance certificates with different security features, how do you expect law enforcement agencies to know the security features of all of them to be able to detect fakes. But to be successful, we needed to be able to distinguish between fake insurance certificates and genuine ones. So we looked at the 41 insurance certificates and developed a standard on which we can identify the valid and invalid insurance certificates. We then train a squad comprising the police and the VIO. The squad is now enforcing valid insurance. They started with persuasion, which is, telling motorists benefits of insurance. Secondly, MARVICS is a provision in the law that all hit and run victims be paid certain monetary compensation from NAICOM. So if OSCAR was to play a role that law needs to be implemented. We had to go through three insurance commissioners to ensure the implementation and MARVICS was launched in March 2008.
Many Nigerians do not understand what OSCAR is all about. Could you expatiate on it and its functions?
OSCAR means the one-stop claims shop for motor vehicles insurance. The idea behind the project is three-fold namely: OSCAR is a programme that is designed to assist accident victims in securing compensation fairly and promptly. Secondly, it is to ensure that the incidence of uninsured driving in Nigeria reduces drastically to see that most cars on Nigerian roads are covered by third party insurance, and the third is to ensure that the insurance industry that ought to pay motor accident claims plays active roles in making our roads safer because the less the accidents the better their profit lines.
SERVICOM is a federal government department and agencies delivering quality services to Nigerians. It is the right of Nigerians to be served right and SERVICOM is facilitating this process, both from the supply of service angle and the demand of service angle. It has a pilot project called SERVICOM Road Safety Pilot Project. This is the project meant to produce the technical details for OSCAR. OSCAR is located in the FCT and has four relevant desks for the processing of documents that insurance companies or NAICOM will ask you to produce when you want to make claims.
These desks include: the police desk, which ensures that you get a police report of any accident in Abuja within five days so that your claims can be processed. We also have the health desk which handles documents such as medical bills, medical reports and death certificate that insurance companies or NAICOM may require for claims processing. Within 24 hours death certificates are procured from any government hospital where such death is reported in the FCT. And in a situation of disability as a result of an accident, the certificate can be processed in five days. We also have the NAICOM desk, which is the regulator of the insurance industry. It is there to ensure that insurance companies comply with claims payments quickly.
What the response is like thus far and what has OSCAR achieved?
To date, we have handled 30 claims, 19 of them are in the area of uninsured driving. This is because a lot of Nigerian drivers don't have valid insurance certificate. In Abuja statistics has established that 91 percent were driving without proper insurance, out of which 40 percent was fake and 45 per cent did not have certificates. Secondly, we have sensitised Abuja metropolis on the benefits of insurance. At the last statistics, we had the compliance rate moved from 5 percent to 30 percent. They also know where to go and get properly insured unlike before where they thought the VIO was a one-stop shop for getting all their vehicle documents, including insurance.
We have settled many mediation claims. Mediation claims are claims you can't call on NAICOM or the insurance companies to pay. We mediate between them and the guilty party pays some form of compensation to the victim. Such compensation would be in the form of the payment of hospital bills.
From what you have said so far, Abuja seems to be where OSCAR is focused. When would it extend to other parts of Nigeria?
The hub of insurance is in Lagos but we thought it was important to have the pilot scheme in the FCT where you gather all the experience and details on whether it would work or not. Now that we have recorded successes in the FCT, we are now prepared to take the crusade to other states.
You said earlier that some people go to your offices to complain of certain maltreatments, by insurance companies and you have to mediate. Are you assuming the role of insurance companies or even NAICOM? What is the response from insurance companies?
OSCAR is not an insurance company; it does not play the role of an insurance company. When complaints are lodged with us we send them to NAICOM which has the right to enforce compliance on the part of insurance companies and they work with us as partners. On issues like an insurance company refusing to pay claims or not paying enough, we talk to the insurance companies directly and see how we can resolve it. We are not assuming the role of insurance brokers; if you have a broker, you can as well go through him or her to process your claims. But not all Nigerians have the opportunity of engaging the services of a broker and some don't even know what an insurance broker is. Those ones we would have to help when they are in need. This would make our roads safer and ensure their profits remain intact.
How much can an uninsured accident victim get as compensation from NAICOM?
They have a scale of risks depending on the magnitude of the accident, but I will just give you the maximum bid of it. For uninsured driving in the case of death, the maximum is N50,000, and for hit and run, it is N20,000. So these compensations are grossly inadequate because they are social provisions. That is why Nigerians must be insured so that the benefit in case of death could be substantial.
What is your dream for OSCAR?
The dream of OSCAR is to see that all vehicles on Nigerian roads, except those on highly classical duties like the Nigerian Army vehicles, are insured for the protection of Nigerian road users. Secondly, OSCAR would also like to see that the liabilities issue in the insurance sector is standardized so that every insurer would know his entitlements in the event of an accident. Currently, liability issues are not standardized as it differs from company to company, but we would want it standardised so that an average Nigerian can have his or her basic claims paid, if involved in an accident. OSCAR would also like to see a situation where the insurance companies play active roles in road safety issues because they pay the price when accidents occur.
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