| credits: File copy
The
National Insurance Commission has said the lead insurer of the Dana Air
plane that crashed in Lagos on June 3, 2012, Prestige Assurance Plc,
and the foreign reinsurer, AON Reinsurers of London, are largely
responsible for paying the families of victims of the accident.
There had been anxiety that the victims’ families might not be adequately compensated following a story by THE PUNCH
on Tuesday that the crashed plane was not properly insured because the
lead underwriter did not pay the premium due to the local companies that
collaborated with it to insure the plane.
However, Daniel said the issue of
non-payment of premium to the co-insurers would not disturb the payment
of compensation because the lead underwriter of the plane had already
commenced the claims settlement procedure.
He said, “I have called Prestige Assurance
and it has said that the claims will be 100 per cent settled; there is
no problem with that.
“Seventy per cent of the risk was well
insured abroad, Prestige Assurance is responsible for the total claims
payment and it has assured that the relatives will be promptly settled.”
The Managing Director, Prestige Assurance,
Mr. Anand Mittal, also told our correspondent that so far, the company
had received 22 applications from relatives of the victims to collect
the claims of their deceased members.
The company had led six other local
insurance firms to insure 30 per cent of the risk locally, while the
remaining 70 per cent was reinsured abroad by AON Reinsurers.
The local co-insurers are Nem Insurance
Plc, Aiico Insurance Plc, Continental Reinsurance Plc, Leadway Assurance
Company Limited, Sterling Assurance Limited and Standard Alliance
Insurance.
“So far, only 22 families have approached
us for the insurance claims of their relatives who died in the crash;
funds have been made available to settle them,” Mittal said.
The lead underwriter, however, said that
the insurers and reinsurers of the aircraft ,accident victims ,leg problems,accident,light weight wheel chair,lightwieght,light weight,chair,wheel,would pay $100,000 or N15.7m
to the relations of each of the victims, which was the internationally
acceptable standard.
According to him, two centres have been
opened in Lagos and Abuja for the relatives to process their insurance
claims upon the presentation of necessary documents.
The insurer said the claims payment to the
third party victims, which would cover both lives and properties lost,
would commence immediately the amount was ascertained.
While responding to the question on
non-payment of premium to the co-insurers of the plane, Mittal said,
“The account is an ongoing thing, there are so many accounts; it is not
only Dana that we co-insured, there are accounts where premiums are
either to be paid or taken.”
He also explained that Prestige used to
retain only 10 per cent of the risk in the country, but recently
increased it to 30 per cent because of local content policy of the
government.
“What matter most at this moment, he added,
is to ensure that the claims were promptly paid to the relatives of
those who died in the crashed plane,” he said.
Some of the co-insurers of the plane had
told NAICOM at a closed-door meeting that they had not yet received
premium on the policy as at the time loss was recorded.chair
wheelchair