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Chuks Udo Okonta
All the insurance companies in Nigeria put together cannot even insure one aircraft, Chairman, Air Peace, Allen Onyema, has said.
Onyema, stated this at a stakeholders’ meeting with the Deputy Speaker, House of Representatives, Ahmed Idris Wase, on Monday, whilst expressing the challenges faced by airline operators in Nigeria.
He submitted that due to the inability of insurers to provide full cover for their aircrafts, they have to go abroad to insure.
“You have not talked about insurance that is very static. Nigerians pay heavy insurance premium because this country is stigmatised.
“You have to insure in Lloyd’s of London and other places abroad. It is a must because all the insurance companies in Nigeria put together cannot even insure one aircraft. So, you have to go abroad to insure, and they slam us with heavy premium.
“What we use in insuring one plane is what the legacy airlines used in insuring about three planes. So, the Nigerian airline is dead on arrival,” Onyema posited.
Efforts to ascertain what insurance sector generate as premium from aviation underwriting was unsuccessful as they tied aviation up with marine business.
Data obtained from the Nigeria Insurance Digest 2020, published by the Nigerian Insurers Association (NIA) revealed that insurers generated N30.83 billion gross premium from aviation and marine in 2020, and ceded N14.58 billion to reinsurers.
On claims, they paid N5.61 billion on both business in 2020.
