Transport and logistics firms that operate in the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) have been urged to embrace the Comesa yellow card insurance scheme to reduce costs and inconveniencies at border posts.Jacob Erhabor, the acting managing director of Sonarwa General Insurance, said that with the card, transporters and motorists do not have to buy insurance cover at each border post,” Erhabor explained.He said the yellow card insurance scheme will greatly benefit cargo truckers that ply the Mombasa-Kampala-Kigali and the Dar es Salaam-Kigali routes. He was speaking ahead of a training workshop to sensitise motorists and third party insurance brokers about the scheme. The workshop is scheduled for tomorrow in Kigali. Comesa comprises of 20 contries. The Comesa yellow card is a motor vehicle insurance scheme that is used by truckers operating in the Comesa bloc. It covers third-party liabilities and medical expenses for the driver and his passengers in case of an accident. It also facilitates cross-border movement of vehicles between the Comesa member countries. The scheme is currently operational in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. It involves about 150 insurance companies, which issue about 50,000 cards annually. Sonarwa is Rwanda’s yellow card national bureau. "The scheme has removed the need for transporters to make stopovers at various border posts across the Comesa trading bloc to acquire insurance cover,” Erhabor added.How the scheme works The Comesa cover is normally processed and settled under third party liability. When one has an insurance policy from Rwanda, they cannot get an extension from another country, say in Uganda. When the vehicle is involved in an accident in another country, the national bureau first verifies the authenticity of the yellow card from the country where the yellow card was issued before it can handle any claims. The claim is then processed according to the laws and regulations of that country. The bureau will later recover the money from the insurer who issued the yellow card if the indemnity does not exceed $15,000. If it is above $15,000, a reinsurance pool pays the indemnity. The protocol that established the scheme was signed by the member countries in 1986 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Erhabor noted that the scheme ensures an uninterrupted movement of people and boosts cross-border trade.He pointed out that the workshop will discuss issues on the efficiencies of the scheme and the move to make it electronic to curb forgeries, which have been dogging the project.