The insurance industry in Nigeria is expected to have a reverse in its fortunes with the unveiling of a digital portal on July 1, 2017, which will help underwriters check against adulteration of motor insurance certificates. Nigeria, which has the highest concentration of motor vehicles in Africa, is said to be losing millions of naira in revenue through the activities of fraudsters who engage in issuance of fake motor insurance certificates with greater emphasis on third party policies. Kenya and South Africa are reported to earn the highest income from third party motor insurance in Africa.  The 55 insurance companies in Nigeria earned a cumulative gross income of N380 billion in 2016 from all classes of their businesses. Eddie Efekoha, Chairman, Nigerian Insurers Association, who confirmed the July 1, 2017 launching of the Nigerian Insurance industry portal said that the scheme was geared towards establishing a common platform for the sale of third party motor insurance.

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The portal would also to help standardise rates thus eliminate the ugly incidence of rate cutting which erodes insurers’ revenue. “This is to further strengthen the digitization of third party motor insurance documentation in Nigeria with the view to finally eliminate fake certificates,” he reiterated. The motor insurance portal will complement similar efforts in the area of marine insurance where 33 insurance companies uploaded 65,000 marine policies as at close of business May 2017. The Nigerian Insurance Industry Database (NIID) is an experiment started in 2012 with Lagos as a pilot state. Efforts to extend it to other states in the country had been hampered by the lack of adequate coverage by mobile network operators.