As most Nigerians battle economic hardship, leading to low disposable income, the number of uninsured vehicles on Nigerian roads has risen to about 9million, LEADERSHIP can now reveal.
Data sourced from the Federal Roads Safety Corps (FRSC) and the Nigerian Insurers Association (NIA) revealed that there are 12 million vehicles plying roads across the country of which only 3.11million were insured as at the end of 2023, indicating only 25 per cent of vehicles are currently insured.
Also, expectations are that the figure of insured motorists may even drop further by the time the figure for the current year (2024) is revealed.
The population of insured vehicles dipped from 3.70 million in 2022 to 3.11million in 2023, showing that, about 600,000 vehicles failed to renew their insurances when their previous coverage expired, owing to tough operating business atmosphere and increasing cost of living that has made Nigerians relegate insurance in their scale of preference.
With increase in fuel pump price coupled with hike in price of vehicle spare parts, some motorists, it was learnt, have either sold their vehicles or park them at home, hence, see no reason to insure.
To this end, LEADERSHIP investigation shows that some of these 9million uninsured vehicles parade fake motor insurance papers, while some did not have any insurance coverage even as few who had genuine insurance papers before have failed to renew when their previous Motor insurance cover expired.