Most people in Lagos learn what insurance the law requires when a police officer, a building inspector or a customs officer asks to see it. Tick what applies to you here and you get the list first: the cover you must hold, the cover to ask about, and the cover worth weighing, each with the law behind it and what to do.
The law changed in 2025, when the Nigerian Insurance Industry Reform Act replaced the Insurance Act 2003, and its signed text was slow to appear. Where summaries of it disagree, this checker says so rather than picking one.
Nothing you tick is sent anywhere; your answers stay on this device.
The law requires
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Required by law
Third-party motor insurance
Nigerian Insurance Industry Reform Act 2025
Pays for death, injury and damage you cause to other people and their property. Nothing for your own car. Police and road-safety officers check it.
Tell the insurer the vehicle carries paying passengers. A policy written for private use may not pay after a crash with a passenger in it.
What to do: Fake certificates are common: verify yours with the insurer, and keep the certificate in the car.
Applies if: I own or drive a car or motorbike; It carries paying passengers - a danfo, a keke, Uber or Bolt; It is on a loan or lease
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Required by law
Group life insurance
Pension Reform Act 2014, s.4(5)
Cover on each employee's life of at least 3 times their annual total emolument. The pension scheme itself is compulsory for employers of 3 or more staff.
What to do: Buy it from a licensed insurer, keep it running for every employee, and tell staff it exists: families often never claim it.
Applies if: I employ staff
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Required by law
Public building insurance
Nigerian Insurance Industry Reform Act 2025, s.76
A building the public uses - offices, shops, malls, schools, hospitals, hotels, hostels and tenements - must be insured against collapse, fire, earthquake, storm and flood, and for injury to the people using it. Lagos began enforcing it through LASBCA in 2026.
What to do: The owner or the occupier can be liable: a landlord and a commercial tenant should agree in writing which of them holds the policy, and the other should get a copy.
Applies if: I own or run a building the public comes into - a shop, office, school, hotel or tenement
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Required by law
Builders' liability insurance
Nigerian Insurance Industry Reform Act 2025, s.75
Needed before work starts, covering death, injury and damage to workers and the public, collapse included. Summaries of the Act disagree on whether it applies above one floor or above two.
What to do: Ask the Lagos State Building Control Agency (LASBCA) before you build.
Applies if: I am putting up a building of more than one floor
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Required by law
Insurance of imported goods
Nigerian Insurance Industry Reform Act 2025
Goods imported into Nigeria must be insured with an insurer registered in Nigeria, not on a foreign policy. Personal effects are not stock.
What to do: Insure the shipment with a Nigerian insurer before it sails.
Applies if: I import goods - not just my own belongings
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Required by law
Petrol and gas station insurance
Nigerian Insurance Industry Reform Act 2025, s.78
Petrol stations and gas plants must be insured.
What to do: Ask a licensed broker what the policy must cover for your site.
Applies if: I run a petrol station or a gas plant
The guide ➞
Ask whether the law requires
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Ask if it applies
Professional indemnity for healthcare providers
Nigerian Insurance Industry Reform Act 2025, as insurers summarise it
Insurers' own guides to the Act list it among the compulsory classes. The signed text was slow to appear, so check before you rely on it.
What to do: Ask your professional body or NAICOM what applies to your practice.
Applies if: I run a clinic, pharmacy or medical practice
The guide ➞
Worth considering
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Optional
Health insurance
Compulsory on paper under the Lagos State Health Scheme Law 2015 and the National Health Insurance Authority Act 2022, and barely enforced. A hospital admission paid in cash is how a family's savings disappear.
What to do: Your employer's plan, Ilera Eko, or a private plan from an HMO - Ilera Eko is the cheap floor for anyone without one.
Applies to: everyone
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Optional
Comprehensive car insurance
Covers your own car against accident and theft, and against flood if you add it. Third-party alone pays nothing for your car.
What to do: Ask specifically about flood. Lagos floods.
Applies if: I own or drive a car or motorbike; It is on a loan or lease
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Optional
Home and contents insurance
Against fire, theft and flood, for what you own - in a rented flat, the contents; in your own home, the building as well.
What to do: Read the exclusions, and ask how a claim is made and what evidence it needs.
Applies if: I rent my home; I own my home
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Optional
Life insurance
If anyone depends on your income.
What to do: Check the insurer is licensed with NAICOM, and that the people you mean to provide for are named on the policy.
Applies if: Someone depends on my income
The guide ➞
Before you pay for any of it
This checker covers what the guides on this site cover. Your employer, your lender or your landlord can ask for cover the law does not, and a licensed broker can tell you what your particular business needs.
Insurance in Nigeria: what the law makes compulsory Health insurance