Influence how much you pay for motor insurance based on how you drive

In a game-changing move by NTUC Income, drivers can now influence their car insurance premiums with their mileage and driving behaviour.

If you’ve been consistently keeping to the speed limit on the road and wondering when the car fairy will pat you on the back for your good driving behaviour, now’s the time. You could up to 20% savings on your premium, provided that you install a smartphone app which tracks your driving speed, manoeuvres, drive time and mileage when you embark on a journey.

Called the Drive Master, it is an insurance scheme which leverages telematics. Very simply put, telematics is the technology of sending, receiving and storing information via telecommunication devices, such as your smartphone.

It uses an app to track your driving behaviour, including speed, manoeuvres taken (such as hard acceleration and braking), mileage and drive time. The app automatically records the trip information and scores it. The user needs to score at least 70% in order to enjoy discounts.

The app algorithm is clever enough to average out driving patterns to reflect “true behaviour”. It can also distinguish between travel in a car and a public transport vehicle, such as a bus or a train. And don’t try to fool it by making someone else drive, or putting your smartphone on a passenger – it can discern differences between the insured’s driving style and that of someone else’s.

The other telematics-based insurance scheme which Income has created is FlexiMileage, which is perfect for drivers who don’t drive that often. If you drive less than 5,000 km a year, you could be saving up to 35% on your motor insurance premium; and if you drive between 5,000 and 9,000 km a year, you could save up to 20% from what you pay now. It makes sense: lower mileage means reduced exposure to accidents.

Traditionally, motor insurance premiums are based on proxy factors such as driver’s profile and claims experience. What Drive Master and FlexiMileage allow is for Income customers to influence their own premiums with the way they drive, or the distance travelled.

Said Mr Ken Ng, chief executive of Income, “With Drive Master and FlexiMileage, we are leveraging digital technology to make insurance more personalised for our customers. The combination of telematics and data analytics allow us to offer insurance which is behaviour and usage-based. Digital technology has the power to reshape the insurance industry, and we want to be at the frontier of this change.”

In a nutshell, here’s what you need to know about the two new motor insurance schemes:

Drive Master

– applicable for all Income motor insurance policyholders and non-policy holders

– driver must allow their driving behaviour to be tracked for six consecutive months, with a minimum mileage of 5,000 km

– driver will need to download the Drive Master app (free of charge) and allow their data related to their driving behaviour to be share via the app during this period; drivers are able to try the app before committing to the scheme

– non-policy holders can download the app and try it for six months, after which they’ll be given a final score, which will determine the discount they qualify if the score is above 70. Income will commit to that discount for 12 months after the six-month trial.

FlexiMileage

– best for drivers who clock fewer than 9,000 km per year

– drivers who clock between 5,000 and 9,000 km annually stand to save 20% on their current premium; those who clock fewer than 5,000 km save 35%

– applicable to off-peak car owners

– to participate in the scheme, drivers should register online before heading to the Income Motor Service Centre to install an on-board diagnostics device (free of charge)

Do note that both schemes are mutually exclusive (you can’t own both) and that Income won’t share your private data with a third party.

For more information, please go to www.income.com.sg/Drive-Master and www.income.com.sg/FlexiMileage.