Insurance Companies Are Fleecing Drivers

A section of drivers in Accra threatened to go on strike yesterday (Monday) by parking their cars (trotros and taxis), in protest against the hike in insurance premium.

According to the drivers, after increasing the premium by 300% last year, the National Insurance Commission was again contemplating adjusting the premium by 500%.

This, they noted, they cannot afford to pay and that, they would discuss the issue with their car owners and park the taxis and trotros, until something was done about the intended increment.

According to the drivers, hardly do they approach the insurance companies to claim any compensation when they are involved in accidents. They noted that the frustrations they go through in the process of accessing the claims usually put them off.

The drivers are, therefore, at sea as to why the insurance companies, despite the huge profits they are making would still be contemplating increasing the insurance premium. The intended strike could, however, not come on yesterday as planned, following the intervention of the Ministry of Transport and the Insurance Commission to use dialogue to resolve the impasse.

Indeed, whilst cutting the sod for the construction of the Kasoa Interchange recently, President Mahama himself dropped a hint of getting the transport ministry to dialogue with the drivers. According to him, his government was not responsible for the increment in the premiums and that the adjustment was done by an independent body set up by the constitution.

The Chronicle agrees with President Mahama that government was not responsible for the increment in the insurance premiums. What cannot, however, be denied is the fact that the drivers are being cheated by these insurance companies and the earlier something was done about it, the better it would be for the entire nation.

According to the drivers insurance premium of GH56 has now jumped to almost GH200.  Clearly, there is no justification for this; The Chronicle would also not accept the alibi that the insurance premiums have remained the same for a very long time, hence the astronomical jump.

As the drivers have put out in the public domain, hardly do they go to make claims because of the frustrations they encounter, including frequenting the courts for a very long time. This means that insurance claim in Ghana is limited, at least when it comes to the 3rd party insurance.

Unless the insurance companies would come out with authentic statistics to disapprove what the drivers are saying, they have no morale right to adjust the premiums to the level they have done, with which they are still not satisfied and want to add more.

To help mitigate the pains the drivers and their car owners are going through, The Chronicle is suggesting to the Insurance Commission to institute measures which would ensure that a driver that did not apply for insurance premium because he or she was not involved in any accident is paid a percentage of his premium contributions after a specific period of time.

For instance, a driver who has driven for six years without any accident, but regularly paying his insurance premium, should be entitled to say 10% or 20% of his contributions.  If the refund of the physical cash to the driver would be problematic, that driver should be absolved from the payment of the premium for say a year.

In other words, the driver should be given a free insurance sticker without paying for it for a year. The Chronicle is aware that insurance is a risk one takes and must, therefore, not be entitled to any refund. But in a situation where the drivers and their car owners are being forced to go for the insurance policy, they, at least, deserve some kind of reward.