Any Singaporean who doesn’t drive would also know that owning a car in Singapore is a killer. Most would say it’s the COE that’s the killer. I would say it’s the whole package.

Ever since I started dealing with motor insurance, I must say I’ve learnt quite a bit. I’m even itching to churn out a quotation for myself with the scenarios of me owning a car or scooter now.

Firstly, the law requires every driver to have at least third party motor insurance. And DUH, you have to pay road tax as well. The premium for the insurance is based on both the driver and the car. A young driver (of 21 years) and with little driving experience. Let’s not be too ambitious, say this young person drives a normal saloon car. The premium would be around $1000+ already. If this young person decides to drive a high performance car…woohoo…lagi best.

$1000 every year for at least 3 years. I don’t think I want to spend that kind of money on a car. Cars are afterall a luxury. Convenient but I don’t think it’s a total necessity in such a small country.

Now, we talk about how one should go about buying the insurance. Usually, dads wouldn’t want to put their children as named drivers so they can escape the high premiums. That’s like the stupidest (is there such a word?) move. If your son is now 21 years old and has less than 2 years of driving experience and he manages to get your car all banged up in an accident, there’s going to be an excess of $2000+. $500 more to get your son to be a named driver or bear the $2000+ excess when he gets into an accident?

NTUC Income offers 2 plans for Comprehensive cover. The one with the lower premium has an excess of $500. The one with the slightly higher premium has a waiver of the excess and a courtesy car benefit. Putting the issue of the courtesy car aside. Paying about $200 more for the waiver of the excess or bearing the full $500 excess? I think if you’re the kind who hasn’t got lady luck on your side or isn’t too confident a driver yet should go for the one with the higher premium.

I almost had one closing for motor insurance today. Unfortunately this wife of the policy holder does not know her husband’s credit card number. With that, I broke the chain of good luck I had for the past 4 days. 6 closings in 4 days…and a long list of logins and logouts. There’s the pros and cons to everything. I may have had the luck of 6 closings when another newbie has none to his name, but my call volume has dropped tremendously. Due to the many times of logging-out to finish up the paperwork, my average call volume of 50+ calls has dropped to 40+. And my table is awfully messy with papers. I’m annoyed at my disorganised self. :glare: