Don advocates building insurance for property owners

An expert in Insurance Management and Finance, Prof Sunday Nwite, has stressed the need for the Federal Government to encourage property insurance to save lives.

The don told our correspondent in an interview on Thursday that as fire outbreaks, building collapses and flooding continue to rise, property owners and individuals should embrace insurance to secure their properties, in consonance with global standards.

The Building Collapse Prevention Guild had revealed that Nigeria recorded about 552 building collapse between 1974 and 2023, with Lagos State having 59.06 per cent equivalent to 329 of the collapsed buildings. The National Emergency Management Agency had also alerted Nigerians to the likelihood of increased flooding this year.

Nwite lamented that many people were ignorant of the benefits of insurance, adding that although there were extant laws on insurance, there was the need for the government to be intentional about the enforcement of such laws.

He stated, “A building with more than one floor needs to be insured in case of collapse. The greatest problem with this country is that laws are made but not enforced and the cabals in the country do not allow beautiful laws to be enforced. The rods available now are inferior and very weak and the so-called 15mm is not worth the weight of 12mm and nobody checks that.

“We have urban and regional planners who approve these buildings as work progresses. They need to go to the site and check the progress of work, but sometimes the government does not provide them with the vehicles to move about. Due to corruption, people find people to help them sign some of the documents and they carry on. The bottom line is that the government itself is not doing what it is supposed to do. Laws are made but not enforced and until we start enforcing them we cannot get things right.

“We have fire insurance in case of any fire incident. Buildings should be insured in the course of construction, and individuals have to insure the apartment they live in because fire can start from their building and affect other people’s property and they are liable.”

He said the cost of insurance could not be a major problem because the premium is based on the value of the property and that insurers sometimes charge 0.005 per cent.

He added, “They will give you terms and conditions like, do not keep fuel inside the building, switch off all appliances while going out because there may be a surge and so on. Those do’s and don’ts are some of the conditions but very few people go for it unless they want to borrow money in the bank. That is when they start looking for how to insure their properties because it won’t be accepted as collateral by banks if not insured. We have done crusades across the country about the need to insure buildings.”