Motor Insurance Renewal

Very often,for a propsective car buyer,the initial car price and COE is what attracts and claims a buyer's attention. Little thought or focus may be placed on maintainance costs of car ownership since the focus is on monthly installment. Thus a prospective carbuyer in Singapore needs to factor in the running costs as this adds to the initial monthly installment and may cause stress to marginal income owners who are on a tight budget. One big ticket item is Motor insurance Premium which has increased almost over 50% over the last 3 years due to escalating claims.

With our VW Golf Sports approaching a year old, it was time for insurance renewal. As is the trend of price increase, we received a notice from renewal from our original insurance appointed by Volkswagen Singapore at the time of car purchase. We were not too happy with the increase from $1050 to $1380, an increase of over 30% within one year and given that we have made no claims in the past 3 years from previous insurers. Luckily, there have been inroads made by local firms specializing in personalised insurance solutions, offering to source out for buyers better priced insurance and financial packages for their needs. Among them are Compare express, RNS Consultancy, Direct Asia and Motor Insurance Singapore.Just by spending about 2 minutes on a simple form usually online, you can get as many as 12 or more quotations. This is enough for you to determine if your current insurer is the cheapest…or not.

In comparing motor car insurance quotes, you will need to consider your profile as a driver, your financial budget, your needs when making a cliam, insurance company track record of filing and claiming and other factors such as to identify the insurer that favors your car-driver profile the most. For example, one insurer prefers Toyota while another prefers Hyundai. Certain insurers may prefer insuring drivers between the age of 35 to 45 while another may prefer drivers above 50 years old. These differences arise due to the claims experience (history) of the individual company.

For us, we laid down what we wanted for our next motor insurance. At least 20% lower premium, option to repair at the authorized agent workshop, Loss of use benefit, provision for authorized driver at no additional cost, a insurance firm with track record. For us, we will willing to accept higher excess ( the initial amount you need to co-pay first in repair costs before insurance claim can be made)to ensure lower premium because we felt that for small claims up to $2000, we were willing to pay that on our own rather than make an insurance claim and lose the No claim and safe driving discounts plus high possibility of increase premiums which will certainly amount to more than $2000 in the long term. It is not worth making a motor insurance claim if the amount is within one's budget and means to settle it privately since insurance claims record in Singapore stays with a person for 3 years and insurance companies will hold that against you as a reason to up your premium or worse refuse to insure you if you have made claims amounting from $25 000 upwards.

We selected RNS consultancy because they were prompt and offered courteous good service and feedback to us. Roy who attended to us came back to us within a day was willing to help us negotiate with the prospective insurance company for better deals after we told him about certain things that other firms were offering at the same price. With his recommendation and our own assessment, we selected Chartis which is a 90 year old international insurance firm with 58 years operating in Singapore.Our insurance premium was lowered by 20%. While excess was $2000, there is an ongoing discount of $600 off the excess for first claim if you choose to repair at one of the recommended workshops offered by Chartis so you only need to pay the first $1400.
If you choose to repair at your own workshop or at the authorized agent workshop, Chartis allows for it but there is no discount for excess so you have the choice. Note that only drivers with 50% No Claim Discount (NCD) entitlement are given the $600 repair excess. For NCD less than 50%, drivers will enjoy a S$300* repair excess waiver.This also applies only if the car is 3 years or newer.

There is a loss of use benefit of $94.00 a day so you can claim public transport costs or rent a replacement car.For new car owners, there is 100% Indemnity with New-for-Old Replacement where in the event of a total loss of the insured vehicle due to accident, Chartis will pay you the full purchase price to buy a brand new car (of the same make and model) if the insured vehicle is less than 12 months old from initial registration. There is also personal Accident Cover of up to S$50,000 for the insured. This benefit pays over and above other personal accident or life insurance in the event of death or permanent disability due to an accident while traveling in a car. This means added benefit for the driver and his/her loved ones too. There is also the usual provision of cover for thrid party claims including those caused by the driver's passengers, flood, windscreen and sunroof damage, 24 hour free breakdown towing in Singapore, claim for replacement of vehicle lock and car key in event of break in with excess of $50.

All in all, it is an attractive insurance offer for us. Roy also provided immediate responses to our queries, was upfront about limitations of benefits, no hard sell and personally came to our place to settle the administrative and financial requirements for us, even on a public holiday.

Those in the field looking for motor insurance renewal, do spend some time to canvass for quotations from the various companies on offer and choose one that you are comfortable with and trust in.

Those keen on contacting our motor insurance provider can look up http://www.rns.com.sg/motor.html on their own or call up Roy at 91699306.