Not Having Insurance Is A Waste Of Time And Money

When I first moved back to Nigeria I didn’t know how car insurance worked in the country. Everyone told me it didn’t work and that I should forget about it. The word on the street was having insurance is a waste of time and money. It wasn’t until a friend of mine, Onajeme Otomiewo, showed me the light, did I know that insurance saves you time and money.

I didn’t realize the difficulty involved in getting someone to fix your car after an accident. My sister in-law tried to warn me but I didn’t listen. I learnt the hard way.

One Friday night, I was on my way home from when I descended Eko bridge right in front of the Alaka Estate. A Trailer came from nowhere and hit me from the back. I came down and saw that the damage was bad. I was pissed so I insisted that the driver of the trailer come down and pay for the repair of my car. The driver refused to come down insisting that I move out of the way so he would park properly.

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My gut feeling was that once I moved out of the way, the driver would drive off. People came to me asking me to move so he can park properly but I told them that I won’t take that chance.

So they asked the driver’s partner to come down to act as a surety that the driver won’t run away. So the partner came down and people held him while I moved my car. But just as I predicted, the driver drove off leaving his partner in our custody.

I took the partner to the police station close to Ojuelegba and locked him up for the night. He gave the police the phone number of the trailer owner and we called the man. The owner told us he will come to the station first thing the next day as it was late already. The next day, I woke up very early and went to the police station. I waited for two hours for the owner to show up. When the Owner arrived he “settled” the DPO and agreed to fix my car. He took me to a repair shop in Yaba and paid for the repair then left.

The man at the bodyshop promised the car would be ready the same day. Since I didn’t trust him with my vehicle, I stayed there while he repaired the car. By 8pm he informed me the car won’t be ready that day. He asked me to come back the next day even though he usually didn’t work on Sundays.

On Sunday, he called me around 6 pm to tell me the car was ready. I was lucky I was able to get the owner to fix my car. Had I not insisted on holding the driver’s partner, then I would have been out of luck. But even at that I wasted my whole weekend fixing my car and I had to use public transportation for my errands on Sunday. Today, I can authoritatively tell you that not having comprehensive car insurance is a waste of time and money.

If I had comprehensive car insurance at the time, I would have simply called my insurance company. The insurance company would have fixed the car and given me a car to use while my car was in the shop. They say time is money, invariably, having insurance saves you time and money. If you drive in Lagos, please invest in comprehensive car insurance, unless you have time and money to waste.

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