By Bisi Bamishe
Tope Adaramola
There is a common insurance parlance that whatever asset you lose that makes you lose your sleep must be insured! We also know that this life is full of risks and one of the ways to mitigate such risks to lives and property when they occur is insurance which brings the insured to the place he was before the loss.
My Pastor, name withheld, left his place of missionary assignment in Ondo State for Abeokuta on this fateful day without any inkling of an impending disaster.
He had had a good cruise in his Peugeot 405 car until he got close to a village called Onipepeye, about 20 kilometers to Abeokuta, when a six- footer trailer driver lost concentration and fatally crushed his car against the road median. The angels of God were on guard, shielding pastor and his wife from untimely death. However, the car was completely wrecked while the wife sustained devastating injury on the head. Pastor was unhurt. Happily, the wife’s injury was not crippling, hence she was discharged from the hospital after a few days.
Expectedly, sympathizers thronged the home of the victims to condole them over the unfortunate accident. In the cause of the visit, a sympathizer casually asked pastor if his car or the truck had insurance. His response showed he was not sure if his own car insurance, a third party, that could not even cover his loss was, neither was that of the trailer but he opted to ask from the owners of the trailer which he did immediately. In responding, the truck owner told him they were not sure of the authenticity of the insurance papers they had. Ignorantly, the owner of the truck had believed that the third party insurance purchased for the truck was either fake or expired, typical of the belief of many motorists about such insurance. They promised to pay Pastor the sum of N300,000:00 which was a far cry from the cost of replacing the wrecked car.
Furthermore, Pastor insisted they send the insurance papers to validate with the insurer, which turned out to be International Energy Insurance (IEI) Plc. Pronto, the company confirmed that the policy was original and owned up to their responsibility to settle the claim on investigation. Not quite few days, an officer of the company was sent to access the car wreckage after which offer was made for payment to replace the car.
My Pastor was rattled as it seemed a strange dream from which he thought he would wake up from. “Insurance, paying?” he retorted within him. Alas, Under three weeks, the discharge voucher was sent to pastor, which he signed.
In the course of the same week the bank account provided by Pastor was credited with about N1.7million as claim payment. Expectedly, Pastor was wowed as his joy knew no bounds. His perspective of the insurance industry changed immediately and he assured he was not going to keep quiet about benefits derivable from insurance as a protection against risks.
What a great “convert” for the International Energy Insurance and the insurance industry generally. Needless to note that if there are critical personalities that have rich span of influence and control over many others, that the insurance industry could market, it is religious leaders like the pastor in question. Pastor confided in his associates he would not only arrange a comprehensive insurance for his new car, but also be a vanguard for the industry amongst his friends in cassock.
There is not a doubt that this scenario has again spoken to the maxim that the best form of insurance advertisement is effective and speedy claims payment and this is what IEI has done, underscoring the company currently under superb managerial and leadership as well as the company’s strong resolve to get back to the front seat of respected insurance companies in the country.
There is no doubt that without this insurance intervention, my Pastor would have become “car-less” and the burden of replacing the lost asset would have naturally rested on the congregants and well-wishers which did not happen courtesy of insurance. There is no better advertisement or PR spin that the insurance industry of today is responsive to their claims payment obligations than what IEI has done to Pastor which other cynical members of the public should also take advantage of.
Tope Adaramola is a chartered insurance practitioner and
PR practitioner
