compulsory insurance

The police officer at the checkpoint on Third Mainland Bridge does not care that you are a careful driver who has never scratched a bumper in your life. He wants to see three things: your driver's licence, your vehicle particulars, and your insurance certificate. Miss the last one and you can be as innocent as a lamb, you are still paying a fine or having an uncomfortable conversation by the roadside.

That certificate exists because Nigerian law makes third party motor insurance compulsory for every vehicle on the road. It is not asking whether you want it. It is not a suggestion from a smart friend. It is the law, full stop, and the reason is simple. If you hit someone's car, or worse, hit a person, the country needs a guarantee that the victim will be compensated even if you personally cannot afford to pay.

Motor insurance is the one every driver in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt and everywhere else knows about, but it is not the only compulsory type. Employers with a certain number of staff are required to carry group life insurance for their workers, so that if an employee dies while employed, the family receives a payout rather than nothing. Builders putting up structures beyond a certain size are required to have insurance covering the building and the public around it, because collapsed buildings in Nigeria have taught hard lessons about what happens when that cover is skipped.

In the United Kingdom, the same principle shows up as compulsory motor insurance too, and employers there must carry what is called employers' liability insurance, protecting staff who get injured at work. A Nigerian in London driving an uninsured car will find British police just as unimpressed as the Lagos version, perhaps with a bigger fine attached.

The thread running through all of this is that some risks are too big and too public to be left to individual choice. When your decision to skip cover can leave another family suffering, the law steps in and removes the choice.