Why victims of Ikoyi collapsed building may not get compensation – NIA

Nigerian Insurers Association, the umbrella body for 61 licensed insurance companies in the country says victims of the 21-storey building that collapsed in Ikoyi last Monday may not get any compensation.

According to the Chairman, NIA, Mr. Ganiyu Musa, none of its 41 members licensed to provide building insurance cover had shown up as the insurer of the property.

So far, 42 bodies have been recovered from the site, including that of the Managing Director, Fourscore Heights Limited, the owner and developer of the project, Mr Femi Osibona; and his personal assistant, Oyinye Enekwe, while 15 people were rescued alive.

Ganiyu Musa, while speaking on Sunday, said the underwriters decided to embark on the inquiry after waiting for days, with no one coming forward to notify them of any form of insurance compensation.

“We wrote to the member companies for confirmation. As of the last time I spoke to the secretariat, none of them has said it provided cover for the building.”

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Musa, who is also the group managing director of Cornerstone Insurance Plc, said the association was keen to know if the collapsed high-rise building had insurance cover.

He said, “It has become a national catastrophe – if we can put it that way; so clearly, we have an interest in following up on how it impacts our members and how it impacts the industry.

He said the premium and compensation attached to building insurance would be determined through an underwriting process.

According to him, the underwriters will get the proposal, evaluate the risks, look into the terms and conditions to come up with the premium to be paid and claim entitlement.

The Director-General, NIA, Mrs Yetunde Ilori, said the association commiserated with the families of those who lost loved ones in the sad event and wished those hospitalized a quick recovery.

While lamenting the worrisome reoccurrence of building collapse in the country, she emphasised the need for the general public to comply with all building rules and adopt insurance in the protection of lives and property to curb further incidence of building collapse.

“Public building includes a tenement house, hostel, a building occupied by a tenant, lodger or licensee and any building to which members of the public have ingress and aggress for the purpose of obtaining educational or medical service, or for the purpose of recreation or transaction of business,” she said.

Ilori called on stakeholders in the built environment to arrest the rising cases of building collapse by ensuring strict adherence to standards, adding that the nation had lost so much to the carelessness of a few unpatriotic builders.

The Commissioner for Insurance, National Insurance Commission, Mr. Sunday Thomas, said the commission had been engaging state governments to ensure building insurance compliance.

He said NAICOM had also sought the support of the Federal Fire Service to commence the enforcement of compulsory public building liability insurance in the country.