Blog - Insurance Agency Singapore | Commercial Insurance and Personal Insurance

5 Tips To Keep Your Business Insurance Premiums Low

18 January 2018 By admin Leave a Comment

If you own a small business, you have to be extremely mindful of your expenses. It is important to be vigilant about your costs so that your business is as profitable as possible. However, since businesses are faced with uncontrollable factors and risks, business insurance is an important expense to prioritize. Nevertheless, you can still keep your business insurance premiums low enough to maintain ideal profit margins. Here are some tips on how to keep your small business insurance premiums low:

Increase Your Deductibles

Insurance should be viewed as a life raft, not a crutch. One way to save money on your insurance policy is to “self-insure” by increasing your deductible to a level that may seem uncomfortable. Deductibles are the amount of money you are required to pay in the event of a claim before your insurance plan kicks in. A higher deductible serves two main purposes: one, to lower your premium, and two, to ensure you don’t file frivolous claims. Insurance is all about risk, and higher deductibles tell the insurer you’re willing to take on some of that risk. So, how do you know what is the right deductible? Determine what amount makes you uncomfortable but won’t wreck you financially. If that figure is $1,000, $2,000, $5,000 or more, that’s where you start.

Bundle Your Insurance Products

Combining your coverage can result in rate deductions as well. If you need general liability, business property, and cyber liability insurance, you can combine those policies with the same company to save money. That is, instead of paying for insurance policies separately, you can bundle them into a single policy such as a Business Owners Policy. This policy can combine income loss, liability, and property insurance, among other coverages, into a policy with a lower rate. However, evaluate the policy first to make sure that you don’t pay for insurance you won’t need.

Reduce Your Risks

One of the factors that insurance companies use to determine the amount to charge you is the level of risk of your business. Therefore, the higher risk your small business is, the higher the amount you will pay. Reducing your risks can simply involve implementing smart risk management strategies in your business to decrease the likelihood of accidents occurring. For instance, you can implement workplace safety measures, theft-prevention programs, human resource training, and disaster preparation programs.

BY JERAMY GORDON

See full story at brashearsinsurance.com

Tips to help save money on your car insurance policy

16 January 2018 By admin Leave a Comment

As per the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, a valid motor insurance providing third-party liability cover is mandatory for all vehicles on public space in India. The number of deaths as a result of vehicular accidents is high in the country. Accidents can’t be predicted but we can be prepared for such an eventuality. No matter how good a driver you are or how well you maintain your car, accidents can happen as a result of bad road conditions or a natural calamity.

A car insurance policy can protect you against any financial crisis arising out of unfortunate events like motor theft, third-party liability damage, accidents, natural calamities, etc. There are 2 main types of car insurance plans available in India:

Third-party liability coverage: This type of insurance policy offers coverage against any damage caused by you to a third-party which includes damages to the person and the vehicle. Third-party liability cover doesn’t include damage to you or your car. Comprehensive coverage: In addition to third-party liability, this type of policy offers coverage against damages to you and your vehicle, theft, fire, in-transit damage, or damage caused by a natural calamity.

Now that you are aware of the importance of having a valid motor insurance policy, here are some tips to help save money on your car insurance. How can you lower your car insurance costs? Insuring an old car is cheaper than insuring a brand new car. Since having a motor insurance coverage is mandatory, it helps to find out ways to save on your car insurance costs. When it comes to car loan and car insurance, it is always beneficial to shop around, do your research in order to get a good deal.

See Full Story at www.sify.com

6 Home Insurance Tips for First Time Home Buyers

11 January 2018 By admin Leave a Comment

For first time home buyers finding the right house can be both an exciting and daunting prospect. From the initial flurry of finding a property that is right for you to going ‘sale agreed,’ it really is just the start of the process. Looking for a reliable home insurer that will help guard and nurture your new castle when life comes into play is another task worth thinking about.

1. Cheap Cover May Not Be Best Value

At the outset it will appear that the bills are piling up, from solicitors fees to surveyor reports and lots more. Despite this, it’s important that you don’t try and sell yourself short when taking out home insurance and find value for your money. In some cases the cheapest cover can often be the least desirable. Be sure to get a number of quotes from different providers and compare the benefits on offer. Most insurers such as The AA will provide cover against losses relating to a fire, storm, flood or theft. The AA will also cover you for accidental damage, i.e. if you spill bleach on your carpet or accidentally kick a ball through your window.

2. Know Your Rebuild Cost

When working out the cost of home insurance, you should think about how much it would cost to rebuild your house and its contents. Your bank and mortgage broker should have conducted a valuation shortly after you go ‘sale agreed’ and prior to your loan approval. This valuation will advise the rebuilding cost of the house, and the minimum amount that you must insure it for.

3. Understand the Benefits of Cover

Be sure to have your contents insured at an adequate amount and don’t forget to specify the most important items, some of which will be covered outside the home. You can extend cover for valuables such as your laptop, tablet or jewellery.

BY BARRY ALDWORTH

See full story at www.theaa.ie

Why You Should Combine Your Trip with Travel Insurance: Tips for First-time Flyers

9 January 2018 By admin Leave a Comment

Are you flying for the first time? Well, whether it is a domestic or international destination, the feeling for the first-time flyer is a heady mix of excitement and nerves. Worrying about all the preparation, starting from packing to getting to the airport, everything appears a little edgy yet exciting. Dozens of questions may arise along the lines of ‘How to pack for a flight?’, ‘What should I pack and what to avoid?’, ‘How to approach the airport authorities?’, or ‘What documents should I keep on my person?’, and so on. And in the midst of it all, you will be making a blunder if you’re thinking of travelling without an insurance cover.

In this article, you’ll find a useful guide and some tips to prepare for your first-time trip and ensure your mind is at ease. Let’s have a look:

Traveling without a Cover? Strict ‘NO’

While travelling, you should try to avoid unforeseen possibilities that could burn a hole in your wallet. By adding an overseas travel insurance plan into your financial kitty, you could easily beat the unplanned expenses that may arise during your trip. The best part is, that you can buy an overseas travel insurance policy online as well, which saves your time and money at the same time. Also, if your health is a concern, you don’t need to purchase a separate plan, as your travel insurance covers medical emergencies.

What all is Covered by Overseas Travel Insurance?

An international travel insurance plan benefits you in a various way. You can access this plan instantly if you choose an online travel insurance option. This is cheap, also. Whether you’re travelling alone or in a group, for a family reunion or to attend a wedding, travel insurance goes hand-in-hand with travel. This plan covers you against –

• Medical emergencies
• Loss of baggage
• Loss of important documents like Passport
• Personal Accident Cover
• Liability cover
• Emergency medical evacuation
• Dental treatment
• Trip cancellation
• Terrorist attack
• Expenses incurred during repatriation of remains

This is what an international travel insurance plan covers you for. I hope we’ve justified the importance of including travel insurance in your check-list.

Now that you’re convinced, let’s jump into more travel trips that you may find useful.

by Asako Maruoka

See full story at www.wanderingeducators.com

Tips for Choosing a Travel Insurance

4 January 2018 By admin Leave a Comment

WHY IS TRAVEL INSURANCE SO IMPORTANT?

This may seem quite obvious, but still, there are a lot of people who choose to travel without insurance. Most of these explain their choice with “oh, nothing will happen” or “I’m never sick”. And although it may be true for the most part, you never know when an accident occurs. For example, I am rarely ill and when I travel to “insecure” areas, I always read and look into safety tips for that specific location, but still, you never know.

During my 7 years of traveling, I’ve only encountered cleaners who stole money in the hotel room and a lost ATM card, but despite that, I would never travel without insurance. The reason for it is very simple; it’s simply not worth traveling without. I have been food poisoned, for example, many times, and if those had gotten more serious I would’ve been in need of some proper medical treatment. Without travel insurance that will often be VERY pricey, to say the least.

If you get seriously ill and need surgery, the costs can hit the roof and you might not afford it. With travel insurance, you only have to pay the deductible (usually about 150 Euro). instead of perhaps thousands of Euros. Similarly, valuables such as camera, computer and mobile phone are subject to theft or breakage.

Theft happens everywhere in the world and it is not only in poor countries that you may encounter jerks or robbery. A good travel insurance can be found for around 1-3 Euros a day. It’s stupid to be cheap when it comes to your own safety and health!

There are far too many examples of travelers who have encountered accidents abroad without travel insurance, who either had to pay ridiculously high fees or been denied treatment. Such a thing will be avoided if you have a good travel insurance covering the unforeseen.

WHAT SHOULD BE INCLUDED IN A GOOD TRAVEL INSURANCE?

The travel insurance should give you coverage in the majority of countries
Coverage for stolen items or things that break should be included
Medical emergencies or regular illness
24/7 hour customer service (you don’t want to talk to a robot while you’re bleeding out, at least not until robots are better than humans)
A good trip cancellation protection
Coverage for interruptions due to illness or other circumstances
Legal fees and costs
Coverage if the company that you booked with goes bankrupt
Personal accidents
Damage compensation for traumatic experiences such as robbery or assault
That you should not have to pay huge expenses upfront (very important)

See full story at www.swedishnomad.com

4 tips on how to sell insurance to underinsured millennials

2 January 2018 By admin Leave a Comment

Given the unprecedented nature of the technological and cultural forces sweeping across the marketplace, the next generation of insurance-buying will inevitably look different from the models used by baby boomers in the past.

Millennials are looking for insurers who can understand and support the nontraditional ways they are living, buying and working. And since these habits and preferences are still evolving quickly over time, the only way that insurance agents and companies can keep up and speak in a language that millennials understand is to first reach out, listen and begin the conversation.

Fuel Cycle, a customer insights and market research platform that helps brands like AIG gather real-time customer insights, suggests a few steps that insurance agents and companies can take to motivate millennials:

1. Engage millennials sooner rather than later.

Insurance agents shouldn’t underestimate the importance of engaging millennials as early as possible, even if those efforts won’t provide significant returns in the near-term.

Renter’s insurance may be a relatively small revenue opportunity, for example, but it can also be a highly cost-effective way to recruit potential customers for higher-margin products down the line.

Although teenagers and twenty-somethings may be notoriously averse to parental advice, when it finally comes time to purchase a coverage plan, millennials are disproportionately buying from the same insurer as their parents, according to Fuel Cycle. This creates an opportunity for companies who have pre-existing relationships with family members, as long as they act sooner rather than later, tapping into those valuable connections before a competitor can enter the picture.

2. Prioritize direct channels.

In order to win over millennials, insurance companies will inevitably have to invest in several nontraditional areas like customer intelligence, as the process of buying insurance shifts onto new screens, channels and platforms over the next decade.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that agents will be irrelevant; in fact, insurers should think about strategic ways to strengthen and repurpose their human capital, turning agents or field reps into higher-level consultants who can provide new kinds of value to the end-customer.

BY JAYLEEN R. HEFT

See full story at www.propertycasualty360.com

Tips for buying travel insurance

28 December 2017 By admin Leave a Comment

Imagine you’re on vacation in the Caribbean. The sun is warm, the water that surrounds you is a vibrant blue and the landscape is lush: You’re in a picture-perfect paradise. But suddenly, you begin to feel ill. When you can’t shake it off, you decide to go to the local doctor, who treats you and assures you that you’ll feel better soon. But then you feel worse, because as you leave the office, you get a hefty medical bill.

Nobody wants to pay for added expenses after splurging on a vacation, but a trip to the hospital overseas could leave you on the hook for a medical bill in the thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars. Each year, there are countless headlines about Canadians who’ve run up exorbitant medical bills while on vacation without travel insurance. Even a quick jaunt across the border to shop or catch a ballgame carries the risk of a crippling expense – and while your provincial health insurance may reimburse you for a small portion of the cost, your coverage is capped at the provincial fee limits for the treatment you received, if that treatment is covered at all.

So why are so few of us insuring ourselves when we travel? Insurance terms can seem complicated, but a good insurance provider will clarify what the jargon means and make getting insured a smooth process.

How to pick a good travel insurance provider

Will McAleer, president of the Travel Health Insurance Association, says there are 4 “golden rules” to follow to ensure you’re getting proper coverage from your travel insurance provider:

Know your health. While some policies include coverage for lost luggage and trip cancellation for various reasons, at its heart, travel insurance is health insurance. Make a note of any conditions you have and medications you are on before applying for travel insurance. That way, you can make sure the policy you buy covers your particular situation.
Know your policy. Ask the travel insurance company or the insurance broker all the questions you can think of before purchasing your policy. For example, ask which services or medical devices are covered by the policy, and how claims are paid.
Know your trip. Think about what you’re going to be doing on your trip. If you are planning any high-risk activities such as bungee jumping, ziplining or extreme snowboarding, make sure your travel insurance policy covers them. “Policies differ in terms of the activities they will cover,” says McAleer. “So don’t just assume you’re covered.”
Know your rights. In June 2017, Canada’s Travel Health Insurance Association launched a bill of rights and responsibilities for consumers. This is a great resource that lets you know what you have a right to, such as access to toll-free support, a free minimum 10-day review of your policy and prompt and fair claims handling.

By Joy Blenman

See full story at www.sunlife.ca

Tips to pay less for car insurance

26 December 2017 By admin Leave a Comment

If you’ve got a car, chances are your car insurance eats up a chunk of your budget. Especially for families with multiple drivers, people with poor credit and drivers with imperfect track records. But Consumer Reports says if you do a little homework, there are ways to lower car insurance costs.

Start by picking a top-rated insurer. Don’t be short-sighted. It’s not just about getting the lowest premium. You want to make sure you get a company that’s going to pay your claim, in a reasonable amount of time and gives you good service.

Then, be sure to set the right deductible. A higher deductible reduces your monthly premium, but you’ll pay more out of pocket if you have a claim. It’s generally a good bet, just make sure you have enough to pay that deductible if your luck runs out.

If you’re a driver with low-risk behaviors, you can lower rates by asking about discounts for things like drivers who don’t use their car for long commutes, students with good grades, teen drivers who take driver-training or mature drivers who take a defensive driving course. Having a good credit score can also save you a few bucks.

BY JENNA SACHS

See full story at fox6now.com

Tips for finding, buying and keeping the best insurance policies for your lawn care business

19 December 2017 By admin Leave a Comment

There are many parts to owning and operating a lawn care or landscaping business that have nothing to do with the work itself.

You must be able to find dependable employees at the right salary. Once you have hired an adequate staff, you must find the right customers. Once you have found the right customers you have to know how much to charge those customers in order to be profitable. Once you have those customers you have to implement quality assurance measures in order to keep those customers happy with your work.

One aspect that frequently gets lost in the mix of all the responsibilities an owner has is purchasing proper insurance coverage to protect the business. There are many aspects of an insurance policy that the business owner should familiarize themselves with that may seem foreign to most first-time business owners.

Here are several tips to help you find the best insurance coverage, find the best price on that coverage and what you should be aware of when you have to use your insurance policy.

How do I find the best coverage?

The way to find the best insurance policies for your business depends on many things that are unique to you and your business. You may be willing to take on more risk than another business owner in the same industry.

For that reason, it is important to find an experienced independent agent with whom you trust. Once you have found a good agent, it is equally important to take a little extra time to speak long and honestly about everything your business does and does not do.

This industry is one that has numerous landscaping general liability classification codes. If you do not give enough information to your agent, they are forced to guess exactly how much risk your business takes on. It is in their best interest to always assume more risk. Doing this protects their business, but may cost your business more in unnecessary premium.

These mistakes usually get fixed in the end of term audit, but even if they find you have paid too much you still have tied up cash in unnecessary premium throughout the year.

Once you have taken care of finding a good agency to partner with and you have spoken with them about all the activities your business partakes in, it is important to ask them what all coverages do you need and what may you be able to do without.

At this point it is important to remember the agent works for you. If you are honest with him about how much risk you are willing to take then they should be able to give you the proper information to cover your business as you prefer. It is important to remember that insurance agents interact with business owners not only when they are selling them a policy, but also when a disaster has occurred.

They may be offering you an extra product not only because they can make more commission on it, but also because they have interacted with a business owner in the past who had a claim occur at their business where they were not covered. Depending upon the size and severity of the disaster, having the right coverage can mean the difference between being closed for two weeks and never opening your business again.

How do I find the best price?

Once you have found a good agent and you have spoken with them about all the ins and outs of your business, it is important to ask for all credits and debits that your business qualifies for.

The best way to do this is to let your agent know what is most important to you as a business owner. If you are a business owner who values price, tell them that. Insurance agents talk with many different people from many different walks of life.

The agent may interact with one customer who wants absolutely every coverage that is offered and at the highest limits possible while another business owner may be willing to take on a higher amount of risk. Some business owners just want the policy in place as fast as possible so they can get back to work.

Other cash-strapped business owners simply want the bare minimum coverage required to be in business because it is all they can afford. Never assume they know what is most important to you. Honesty is always the best policy in life and in business. Tell your agent what is important to you and if they are a good agent, they can work to satisfy your needs.

By Mitchell Sharp

See full story at www.totallandscapecare.com

5 tips for buying your first insurance policy in Singapore

14 December 2017 By admin Leave a Comment

So you’re all grown up now and one of the things you need to do to get this adulting thing right is to buy your first insurance policy.

Okay, so poring over insurance policies and actually speaking to insurance agents rather than running away from them isn’t exactly the most enjoyable way to spend a Tuesday night.

But making sure your first insurance policy is right for you isn’t rocket science-yes, even if you have no clue what insurance you need or even why you need it.

Here are five tips to get yourself on the right track.

1. LISTEN TO WHAT THE INSURANCE AGENT HAS TO SAY, BUT DON’T FEEL OBLIGED TO BUY FROM HIM

You should totally avoid insurance agents like the plague-unless you actually do want to buy insurance but aren’t sure what plans you need.

If you have no clue where to start, it would probably benefit you to make an appointment with an insurance agent in your social circle, or even one of the random ones who’s accosted you on the street. Sit down with them and have them explain the various types of insurance policies.

You’re not going to need all of the plans the agent talks about-for instance, be aware that the agent is likely to try to get you to sign up for an investment-linked savings plan, which may not be a good idea. But some plans are more appropriate as your first insurance policy, such as health insurance and personal accident insurance.

The agent will be able to give you a pretty comprehensive overview of what the various insurance plans are for. Of course, there is no substitute for reading the actual policy. But if you’re totally clueless, an agent can give you a good introduction.

2. UNDERSTAND WHAT INSURANCE YOU ACTUALY NEED

Once you’ve parted ways with the agent, you should have a decent idea of what the various types of insurance entail. Now you need to figure out what you really need-obviously, if the agent had his way, you’d be buying everything.

As a general rule of thumb, a health insurance plan is highly recommended for every young Singaporean who’s started working. Yes, we have MediShield Life, but it is very limited in scope and you’ll be stuck in overcrowded government hospitals if you have only that to rely on.

If you have dependents-such as children, aged parents, a non-working spouse-who rely on you financially, you should also consider life insurance. Note that there is a big difference between a straight-up life insurance plan and investment-linked life insurance.

By JOANNE POH

See full story at www.asiaone.com

Insurance Agency Singapore | Commercial Insurance and Personal Insurance