Most people in Accra learn what insurance the law requires when a policeman, a Fire Service 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.
Nothing you tick is sent anywhere; your answers stay on this device.
The law requires
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Required by law
Motor third party insurance
Motor Vehicles (Third Party Insurance) Act, 1958
Pays for death, injury and damage you cause to other people and their property. Nothing for your own car. It is what the police check.
The policy must say the vehicle carries fare-paying passengers. A private policy on a car used for fares may not pay out at all after a crash with a passenger in it.
What to do: Check the sticker is real before you pay, by its QR code or the NIC's code, and keep the receipt and policy schedule in the car.
Applies if: I own or drive a car or motorbike; It carries paying passengers - taxi, trotro, Uber, Bolt or okada; It is on a loan or hire purchase
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Required by law
Commercial building insurance
Insurance Act, 2021 (Act 1061), ss. 218-219
A building the public enters for business must be insured against collapse, fire, earthquake, storm and flood, and for liability to the people using it. Not having it is an offence.
The owner and the occupier can both be on the hook. A tenant and landlord should agree in writing which of them holds the policy, and the other should get a copy.
The duty starts while it is under construction, not when it opens.
What to do: Ask for "commercial building" or "fire and allied perils" cover, insured for the cost of rebuilding, and keep the certificate where an inspector can see it.
Applies if: I own, rent or run a shop, office or other commercial building; I am putting up a commercial building
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Required by law
Marine cargo insurance
Insurance Act, 2021 (Act 1061), s. 222
Goods imported into Ghana, other than personal effects, may not be insured with an insurer that is not licensed here without the Commission's permission. A container of stock on a foreign policy is not allowed.
What to do: Insure the shipment with an insurer the NIC licenses, before it sails.
Applies if: I import goods - not just my own belongings
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Ask whether the law requires
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Ask if it applies
Public liability insurance
Insurance Act, 2021 (Act 1061), ss. 214-215
Pays when a member of the public is hurt, or their property damaged, because of your business. The Act makes it compulsory for the classes of business named in its Second Schedule.
What to do: Ask the NIC, or a broker it licenses, whether your kind of business is on that list. A commercial building policy already includes liability to people using the building.
Applies if: Customers or the public come into my business
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Ask if it applies
Professional indemnity insurance
Insurance Act, 2021 (Act 1061), ss. 216-217
Pays when a client loses money through a professional's mistake. The Act makes the employer of a professional it names insure them.
What to do: Ask the NIC, or your professional body, whether your profession is one the Act names.
Applies if: I run a professional practice, or employ professionals
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Worth considering
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Optional
NHIS
Covers routine care, maternity, malaria, chronic disease and the expensive cases at public facilities, for very little. Cover only starts after a waiting period, so it is useless bought in an emergency.
What to do: Register now, and renew every year, whatever else you buy.
Applies to: everyone
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Optional
Comprehensive motor cover
Third party cover plus damage to your own car in an accident, whoever was at fault, and fire and theft. Without it you pay for every dent and write-off yourself.
The lender will almost always require it while the loan runs.
What to do: Compare the excess, insure the car for what it is worth - no more, no less - and ask what a claim costs you in no claims discount.
Applies if: I own or drive a car or motorbike; It carries paying passengers - taxi, trotro, Uber, Bolt or okada; It is on a loan or hire purchase
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Optional
Stock and contents cover
The compulsory building policy does not have to cover your stock, cash or equipment. After a market fire, this is the part traders wish they had bought.
What to do: Ask for stock to be added, and keep photos of your stock and receipts off the premises - a claim with no record of what was lost is hard to pay.
Applies if: I keep stock, cash or equipment at the business
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Optional
Home and contents insurance
Not compulsory for a private home. Fire is the risk most worth covering, in a city where electrical fires are common.
What to do: Insure for the cost of rebuilding, and read what the policy excludes.
Applies if: I own the home I live in
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Optional
Private health insurance
Shorter queues, a choice of facility and the private hospitals - on top of NHIS, not instead of it.
Ask in writing whether the condition is covered or excluded as pre-existing, and for how long.
What to do: Compare the annual limit before the outpatient benefit: a consultation is affordable, an admission is not. Ask what it excludes.
Applies if: I want to use private hospitals; I or my family have a long-term condition
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Optional
Term life insurance
Pays a larger sum if you die within the term, and nothing if you survive it. The cheapest way to protect people who live on your income.
What to do: Name the beneficiaries on the policy, answer the health questions truthfully, and tell them the policy exists.
Applies if: Someone depends on my income
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Optional
Funeral cover
A fixed sum soon after a death, often covering parents and parents-in-law too. Small, cheap and quick to pay - including the policies sold on MoMo.
What to do: Read when full cover starts - most pay nothing in the first months - and keep the premium paid, or the cover lapses.
Applies if: I would have to pay for a family funeral
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Before you pay for any of it
These apply to every policy, compulsory or not:
- No premium, no cover. The Insurance Act forbids insurance on credit. “Take the sticker now and pay at month end” gives you no cover until you pay.
- Check the insurer, broker or agent is licensed at nic.gov.gh/entities/verify before you pay anyone, and pay to the company’s own account or MoMo merchant.
- Compulsory policies run for 12 months, so they have to be renewed every year. Put the date somewhere you will see it.
- Read the exclusions and the excess in the policy wording, not the brochure. The excess is the part of every claim you pay yourself.
- Keep the policy document and the receipt. A sticker or a photo on WhatsApp is not the policy.
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 Ghana: what the law makes compulsory Making a claim, and complaining to the NIC