Top Insurance Companies in Singapore

You’re on your way home from work when you notice flames shooting into the sky from a rooftop in your neighbourhood.

As you get closer, you realise it’s your roof!

So, you speed towards your house and breathe a sigh of relief to find your family standing in the yard. Everyone is safe. But the house you recently built or bought is heavily damaged by fire.

With no insurance, you’ll be left to bear the full brunt of repairing the house and replacing your damaged belongings.

What’s Insurance?

Insurance is a way of protecting your home, business, or personal belongings from financial losses. It’s a contract that serves to help you manage risks. So, instead of shouldering all the financial risks you incur in case of an accident or loss, you transfer it to an insurance company or agency in exchange for premiums or a fee.

The Benefits of Insurance

Insurance can help you to:

• Own a Home

  Mortgage lenders don’t just approve mortgages. They first have to ensure that your home is protected. The insurance policy you get must cover your home for any damage or repair. It must also cushion you from theft and the damages caused by common perils, such as water and fire.

• Drive Vehicles

  The repairs, legal expenses, and health care costs associated with accidents and injuries are only affordable by a few people. But, thanks to insurance coverage, you do not have to worry about any of them. Add to that, auto insurance is a legal requirement in Singapore.

• Maintain Your Standards of Living

  Nothing has to change should you become disabled or end up suffering from a chronic illness. You can use insurance to cover your day-to-day expenses as you focus on recovery and your health.

• Cover Health Care Costs

  You can take insurance to cover for your dental care, vision care, drug prescriptions, and any other health-related issues.

• Provide for Your Family

  If something happens to you or in the event of your death, you can use insurance to cater to your family’s needs. You have the option of signing up for an insurance cover to protect your family home, lifestyle, mortgage, and children’s education.

• Take Vacation

  You can take a vacation and have insurance cover you in case of emergency medical expenses while abroad or in case of flight cancellation.

Covid-19 Insurance Coverage in Singapore

No matter the nature and size of your business, it’s likely that you’ve been affected by Covid-19.

Singapore is among the few countries that have successfully managed to contain the virus. Never has the country been this united in fighting a pandemic.

It all started with the government offering to foot the public hospital bills covid-19 patients in the country incur.

It’s the same with some of the insurance companies in the country:

The Life Insurance Association and the General Insurance Association decided to extend their coverage to hospitalised COVID-19 patients.

Examples of Complimentary Insurance Coverage for Covid-19 Patients

Here are a few examples of insurance companies that provide free Covid-19 insurance coverage:

AIA

AIA is one of the largest pan-Asian life insurance groups. It offers financial insurance services in addition to writing life insurances for businesses and individuals.

Who’s Eligible: Issued to corporate or individual or life insured policyholders by 31^st July 2020. It’s estimated that up to 1.4 million of their existing customers are eligible for this cover.

Length of Coverage: The insurance cover is expected to run until 31^st December 2020, or 30 days after DORSCON turns green, whichever comes earlier.

How Much is the Coverage: A lump sum pay-out of $1, 000 for those hospitalised, and $25, 000 for a policyholder who dies as a direct result of COVID-19.

More information about this special Covid-19 insurance coverage can be found here.

AXA

Who’s Eligible: General and Individual Life insurance policyholders.

Length of Coverage: The insurance cover is expected to run until 31^st December 2020, or 30 days after DORSCON turns green, whichever comes earlier.

How Much is the Coverage: Covid-19 patients in the hospital are entitled to a daily pay-out of $200 for a maximum of 90 days. The amount is increased to $400 if you’re a frontline health worker.

In case of death, a lump sum pay-out of $20, 000 or $40, 000 will be given to healthcare workers.

For more information concerning this insurance cover, be sure to check out this page.

China Taiping

Who’s Eligible: Policyholders with new or existing life insurance covers.

Length of Coverage: Until 29^th May 2020

How Much is the Coverage: Those hospitalised are eligible for a cash payout of $100 per day for a period of up to 30 days. In addition to that, they’ll receive $1, 000 as recovery bonus or $10, 000 in case the patient dies.

For more information on this insurance coverage, click on this link.

China Life

Who’s Eligible: Life insurance policyholders whose policies were issued before 10^th February 2020.

Length of Coverage: Until 31^st August, 30 days after DORSON turns green, or after you receive a total payout of $620, 000, whichever comes first.

How Much is the Coverage: $130 daily payout for a maximum of 60 days, $80, 000 in case of death, and $800 as a diagnosis benefit.

Click here to find out more about this insurance coverage.

DBS/POSB

Who’s Eligible: Policyholders who signed up between 24^th February to 15^th Match, 2020

Length of Insurance Coverage: 30 days after you submit your application

How Much is the Coverage: Daily $100 hospitalisation benefit for a maximum period of 14 days. $1000 when admitted to ICU.

For more information concerning this insurance coverage, follow this link.

Top Insurance Companies in Singapore

Top Insurance Trends in Singapore

Here are a few insurance trends that will be shaping up the industry as the year rolls by:

• Personalised Products

  Customer preference is shifting from one-size-fits-all insurance products to more personalised products. For this, insurance companies have to adopt digitalised models that create intermediaries in the value chains. That means they would start offering flexible coverages, peer-to-peer insurance, and micro-insurance services.

• Artificial Intelligence and Automation

  Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) will take centre stage in the insurance landscape. They’ll be driven by better data processing capabilities, newer data channels, and advancements in AI algorithms. Many insurance companies now deploy behavioural economics and AI as their core elements.

• Advanced Analytics and Proactiveness

  Premiums will become personalised, facilitated by new tech-enabled data sources, such as Internet of things (IoT), wearables, and mobile-enabled InsurTech apps. Connected devises are poised to grow even stronger in the coming years.

• InsurTech Partnerships

  Traditional insurers only have two options: to partner with InsurTech companies or to acquire the technology. Innovative products and services are on the rise — it’s a win-win situation for all the parties involved. Insurers will benefit from the faster results and increased customer reach, while customers experiences will be significantly enhanced.

• Mainstreaming Blockchain

  Insurers operate with large volumes of data, some of which have to be processed in real-time by different insurance functions. This demands that some of the data be transferred across organisations and a diverse range of stakeholders. Blockchain technology has been designed to provide a secure transfer of this data across different stakeholders and multiple interfaces.

What to Consider While Choosing the Right Insurance Company in Singapore

Unfortunately, in Singapore, people look at insurance as nothing more than another run-of-the-mill financial action. It’s for this reason that many of them make critical mistakes when choosing an insurer.

Here’s a list of the things to look for when choosing the perfect insurer in Singapore:

• The Price Tag

  You can’t put a price on your life. But, when choosing insurance, you have to crunch the numbers and go with the highest possible value. It’s simple logic — you want to reap the maximum benefits from the cover you get. A better approach would be to enlist the services of insurance aggregators (such as GoBear) and compare everything. The offer you choose must complement your financial plan without overshooting your budget.

• History

  Don’t get swayed by the flashy adverts a company puts out. Run some background checks. Find out more about the company and how long they have been in business. You’re looking for a company with an established track record and a bevy of happy customers. Look at their claim settle ratio, ratings, reviews, network, and reach. You want to choose a company that has recorded a steady performance and is not erratic in their pay-outs or decisions.

• Size Matters

  No one should lie to you; size is of the essence when choosing an insurance company. It narrows down to the brass tacks when choosing an insurer. Look into crucial numbers — total assets, growth ratio, market share, and premium. You’re doing all this to determine if they have the financial muscle or ability to meet your claims when you make one.

• Service Quality

  No one wants to do business with an insurer that shows hostility towards their customers. Is the insurance company available to answer your questions whether it’s over the phone or in-person? How patient are they? Are they always busy with making sales pitches with little to no time to address their customers’ concerns?

• Complaints and Reviews

  It makes great sense to dig around for negative reviews or complaints on an insurance company before you can decide if they make a good fit for you. Of course, some of the reviews are fake, with some even generated by competitors. What’s important is to look at how the company responds to the negative reviews and complaints addressed at them. A company that portrays a don’t-care attitude should be avoided like the disappointment they are.

What Insurance Should You Get?

Which insurance cover should you get in Singapore? After a little bit of digging around and contacting insurance experts, we compiled a list of insurances that you can get in Singapore:

Things that Can Void Your Car Insurance

Silly — and avoidable — mistakes that happen to even the most responsible of Singaporean citizens could actually void an insurance cover. We’ve highlighted a few of these mistakes in this section of the post:

• Not Being Honest

  If you ever get into an accident and fail to state what happened truthfully or lie about it, the insurance company has the right to refuse to cover the loss should they find out the truth.

• Not Being Corporative

  Insurance companies don’t just rush to cover you in case something happens; they have to investigate and find out what happened before they can proceed with any pay-out. For this, you have to closely work with them and provide them with all the necessary details and information. Otherwise, the insurance has the right to refuse the cover.

• Fronting

  Your insurance company may charge you a higher premium if your driving record is that bad since they consider you high risk. One common trick that bad drivers use to avoid paying high premiums is to buy the insurance cover under the name of a better driver. This is what is referred to as fronting.

• Using Your Car for Any Purposes Other than Private Purposes

  If you take an insurance cover for a private car and, for some reason, end up using the car for commercial purposes, that’s reason enough to void your policy. An example is when you hire your private car, and it gets into an accident. Your insurance company has the right to refuse the cover.

How to Get Cheaper Premiums for Your Car Insurance

The premiums charged by an insurance company will always vary depending on factors such as your experience, age, type of car, and so on.

• No Claims Discount

  You can ask for a no-claims discount. Insurance companies give this discount to drivers that go without making any claims for long periods. So, in a way, driving safely is one way to lower your premiums.

• Get a No-Claim-Discount Protector

  An NCD protector is designed to help you preserve your No Claims Discount (NCD) should your car get into an accident. But if you’re sure of not getting into an accident, driving without this protector is another way you can save money.

• Install an All-in-Car Camera

  Some insurance companies will give you a discount on your premium for recording a continuous video of your journey. This can also serve as evidence should an accident happen and you are looking for a way to push the insurance company to settle claims quickly.

• Only Pay for What You Need

  Learn to cut unnecessary costs. For instance, some policies come with unnecessary covers, such as transport allowance, round-the-clock-phone assistance should your car break down, or repatriation costs in case your car needs to be towed back to Singapore from a neighbouring country. The truth is, you don’t need all these services. Just go through the list of services included in the policy and strike off all the services you don’t need. This should lower your premiums.

Investment and Insurance

The question most people ask is if it’s okay to mix the two?

Here’s the thing: if an agent ever approaches you with an Investment-Linked Product (ILP), the chances are high that they think you’re lazy or too busy to handle your own investments.

You should separate the two to avoid attracting a long chain of middlemen and avoid driving up management costs, fees, etc.

Here are some of the reasons you should learn to separate your investments from insurance:

• You’ll have a chance to take charge of your finances. You don’t want to give this power to an agent. Separating the two will give you the power to know what’s happening to each.
• You’ll have more flexibility when it comes to withdrawing and reallocating the funds. This comes with lower fees and lock-in.
• If not, you’ll be paying more fees to the middlemen involved in the transactions (management costs and fees).