The National Chairman of the Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU), Nana Nimako Bresiamah, has commended the National Insurance Commission (NIC) for coming to the rescue of players in the commercial transport sector and bringing sanity to the roads.
He noted that the implementation of the Motor Insurance Database (MID) has significantly reduced the incident of fake insurance policies procured by their members, who only realise these policies are fake after an accident has occurred.
Mr Bresiamah further disclosed that since NIC boss took over the mantle of leadership at the NIC, the transport industry has conspicuously noticed the sanity he has brought to the insurance industry.
He however urged the Commissioner do something about the ‘No Premium, No Cover’ policy, as many commercial drivers have come to appreciate the importance of comprehensive insurance policies over third party insurance covers.
The GPRTU National Chair made these remarks when he led the national and regional executives of the GPRTU to pay a courtesy call on the Commissioner of Insurance, Dr Justice Ofori.
Third party insurance
The General Secretary of the GPRTU, Mr Godfred Abulbere, indicated that while some of their members wish to buy comprehensive motor insurance, they are compelled to go in for just third party cover because they are unable to pay the premiums upfront.
Responding to the aforementioned, Dr Ofori described the request as a thoughtful approach, especially by commercial driver who hitherto bought third party insurance just to satisfy police checks.
He told the executives that if the one-time payment of a comprehensive insurance policy premium by a vehicle owner is high, there is also an opportunity for them to take monthly and even quarterly packages.
This, he explained, has been available on the insurance market, and urged the drivers to take advantage of such flexible arrangements.
It came out that leaders of the Union had no knowledge about this. They were, therefore, encouraged to request this arrangment from insurance companies, with the assurance that where they don’t receive good response for such arrangements, they should quickly resort to the NIC to have the insurance companies to comply.
The NIC boss explained to the GPRTU executives that the policyholders’ interest and protection are dear to his heart, saying that is what forms the basis of the Commission’s mandate. He assured that the Commission would therefore do all in its power to fulfil this mandate.
About NIC
Dr Justice Ofori was appointed as Commissioner of Insurance in 2017, after serving as the first Director of the Ghana Insurance College.
Among other reforms undertaken in his tenure is the government’s digitisation agenda, by introducing and implementing the Motor Insurance Database (MID), a central platform on which no validly insured vehicle could ‘escape’.
He was particularly motivated to put in place measures to significantly reduce the number of vehicles with fake insurance policies plying the roads, and was instrumental in ensuring that the menace was curbed as families and livelihoods were being adversely affected in the event of road accidents.
Additionally, Dr Ofori announced the intention of the Commission to organise training sessions for drivers across the country, an initiative he believes would largely increase awareness.
He indicated how passionate he was about insurance education after leading the Commission to institute the training of personnel of security agencies, including the Ghana Police Service’ MTTD, the Ghana National Fire Service, among several others, just to make them understand insurance.
In his view, educating people on insurance will lead to a heightened appreciation of insurance rather than the feeling of compulsion to buy insurance.
His establishment of an Insurance Educational Fund to promote insurance awareness in Ghana was further highlighted by his target of training 10,000 youth as insurance agents to boost the
manpower needs of the insurance industry and also to engender professionalism in the agency sector.
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