Need for victims of hit-and-run accidents to seek relief

Mr Gabriel Glover, Executive Secretary of the Ghana Insurers Association (GIA), on Friday advised victims of hit-and-run drivers to seek relief through the Motor Compensation Fund established by the National Insurance Commission (NIC). He said the fund was set up by the NIC in 1996 in conjunction with insurance companies that underwrote motor insurance businesses to provide relief to victims of motor accidents caused by drivers or vehicles which could neither be traced nor identified. Mr Glover said this at the closing session of a two-day workshop, organized by the Ghana Insurers Association (GIA) for selected journalists to build their capacity in the insurance industry, in Accra. He expressed worry at the fact that the fund was undersubscribed and suggested public education as an effective tool to alert family members of such victims to seek remedies made under the fund. �The fund is not meant to relieve insurance companies of their liabilities under policies they have issued, neither does it intend to encourage motorists not to insure their vehicles or to relieve motorists of their obligations to the victims,� Mr Glover. He said the awards of money to victims were purely voluntary and not a contractual obligation on the part of the fund. Mr Glover said that �The fund is a compensation fund of last resort. Therefore the claimant must prove that he or she has tried without success to make a claim from the insurer of the offending driver or the vehicle owner.� He said the establishment of the compensation fund could be seen as fulfilment of the corporate social responsibility of the insurance industry towards the public. Mr Glover said source money of the fund was a percentage of the motor contributions received by the NIC on every sticker issued by motor underwriting companies to insured persons hence making the public stakeholders to the fund. Mr Glover said apart from hit-and-run cases, victims of motor accidents could still access the fund for relief under situations where the policy had expired at the time of the accident, breach of policy conditions which rendered the insurance policy invalid as well as situations where there was no insurance policy at all. �All the victim needs is to produce police and medical reports, other complaints together with relevant documents. He or she should send it to the NIC offices for consideration.�