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Haruna Magaji

Insurers consider national policy on flooding

ASABA FLOOD11

Ahead of this year’s raining season, insurers are considering a national policy on flooding and how awareness can be massively created. Underwriters under the aegis of the Nigerian Insurers Association, (NIA) expressed concern over the need for adequate cover for individual homes and businesses as the raining season draws near.

Though the level of awareness is low as a result of shortage of data to measure exposure, experts   believe that having a national insurance flood policy would spur insurers to provide appropriate policies, as well as intensify awareness to cover affected areas and critical investments.

NIA’s Director-General, Mr Sunday Thomas, said the governing council of the NIA is seriously looking at flood insurance and how awareness can be created to educate consumers. Thomas considered the need for a national policy on flood insurance where government collaborates with insurers, take a certain proportion of the risk exposure and insurers take the rest.

“Insurers are willing to go full blast on providing cover, particularly for corporate institutions and farmers in exposed areas, but it could be very catastrophic because flood claims are borne between government and insurance companies in most jurisdictions, say’s one of the players.

“It is an insurable risk, but we need data to determine the level of vulnerability of particular areas. And that is what we do not have now.”

The lack of flood insurance can be detrimental to many homeowners who may discover only after the damage has been done that their standard insurance policies do not cover flooding”, another expert said.

“Unfortunately, in flood insurance, the number of claimants is larger than the available number of persons interested in protecting their property from the peril, which means that most private insurers view the probability of generating a profit from providing flood insurance as being remote.”

The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) had said the country recorded significant reduction in economic losses occasioned by flood in 2016 even though the volume of water surpassed the one that caused massive havoc in 2012.

The Director, Disaster Risk Reduction Department of NEMA, Alhassan Nuhu, said that the number of displaced persons was less than a million in 2016 compared to 2.3 million persons in 2012 and that less than 100 people died in 2016 as against 360 persons in 2012.

Furthermore, he said that the total number of people affected in 2016 was less than one million compared to seven million in 2012.

Going by the statistics, Mr. Nuhu said that Nigeria was moving in the positive direction in the implementation of the Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR).

The Sendai Framework is a 15-year; voluntary, non-binding agreement which recognizes that the state has the primary role to reduce disaster risk

Although more frequent floods are recorded in Niger, Adamawa, Oyo, Kano and Jigawa states possibly due to the influence of rivers Niger, Benue, Ogun and Hadeja, Lagos state seems to have experienced most of the floods in the country.

 

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This post was last modified on December 26, 2019 2:40 PM

Categories: LATEST NEWS
Haruna Magaji: Haruna Magaji is a journalist, foreign policy expert and closet musician. He is a graduate of ABU Zaria and a member of the Nigerian union of journalists. JSA, as he is fondly called, resides in Suleja, Abuja. email him at - harunamagaji@financialwatchngr.com
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