Dana Crash: Insurers Pay Interim N373m Claims To 79 Relatives

June 3, 2012 will remain a red letter day in the annals of aviation in Nigeria – it is the date that the ill-fated Lagos bound Dana air flight 992, crashed in the Iju-Ishaga area of Lagos state killing all 153 passengers and crew members onboard as well as approximately six deaths and an unknown number of injuries to people on the ground.

Five months after, the airline’s insurers have paidout an interim $2.37m (N373.04m) claims to relatives of the deceased.
The Managing Director, Prestige Assurance, Mr. Anand Mittal, disclosed this in Lagos on Friday.
Prestige Assurance led six other local insurance firms to insure 30 per cent of the airline’s risk locally, while the remaining 70 per cent was reinsured abroad. The coinsurers are Nem Insurance Plc, Aiico Insurance Plc, Continental Reinsurance Plc, Leadway Assurance Company Limited, Sterling Assurance Limited and Standard Alliance Insurance.
“We have paid $30,000, which is about 30 per cent of the total claims of each of the 79 applicants, who have completed their documentation so far. No other relatives have submitted their completed documents,” Mittal said,
He said the aircraft’s foreign reinsurers had demanded for some documents to enable them commence the settlement of their own part of the claims.
According to Mittal, the inability of relatives to present letters of administration of the estate of the deceased and death certificates, has so far stalled the processing of their claims.
He said relatives of those who died on the ground and those who lost their properties to the crash, would also be compensated. He, however, said they had not yet been paid because the amount due to each of them had not been ascertained.
“The parties are dealing with that; when they finalise on the amount, we will pay them. We do not know how much that is going to be for now because that is being done by their solicitors,” Mittal said.