Acko Insurance or HDFC Ergo – Which is a Better Auto Rickshaw Insurance Cover?

When you are buying insurance, there is a fairly long list of considerations including the premium amount, benefits and inclusions, add ons that you might not have been able to afford otherwise, which tier of insurance to opt for and whether to get a monthly policy or an annual policy. 

However, it might be a little counterproductive, or even highly restrictive, if you decide you want insurance only from a particular brand. If you want to bring home the best deal, you should not be comparing brands or even displaying loyalty to a certain brand (unless they are giving you a huge discount by way of a No Claim Bonus, abbreviated as NCB). 

Ideal method of comparison – an introduction

Instead of comparing brands, you should compare the offers extended to you by various brands. Make them fall over each other for your business – that’s how you get a better deal, whether that means a lower premium or a higher number of benefits and inclusions. 

One of the best ways to compare offers from various insurers is to compare rates online, preferably via an online marketplace like IIFL Insurance (www.iiflinsurance.com). 

Why people tend to compare brands 

Traditionally, people bought insurance from agents that they found in the neighborhood or via a reference or through word of mouth. Or maybe even door-to-door sales. These agents only told people about the insurance companies who paid them handsome commissions, because obviously when running a business, one has to consider profitability. Moreover, the agent would push more aggressively for the insurers offering him or her the highest commission. As a result, the agent’s commission, rather than the actual quality of the insurance product, was what drove sales. This might have enabled very mediocre insurer’s and products to become popular and trustworthy – because people did not know any better. 

It is also important to understand that linking quality to brand helped the agent sell better as the buyer was focussing more on known names rather than actual benefits and inclusions. 

Additionally, before online insurance became possible, people had to rely on the insurance agent’s word and commitments made because the actual product literature was riddled with jargon that the buyer could not comprehend. On many occasions, buyers would learn the hard way that the agent overcommitted or to put it politely, there was a gap between the agent’s words and what the insurer was actually offering. 

Along came Fintech

Buying insurance online is extremely transparent and lets you compare rates and the overall products being extended to you by different insurers. This was all made possible by the Fintech (or financial technology) revolution that made financial services available on smartphones. 

The penetration of smartphones, affordable internet and the comfort of buying (just about anything) online and investing online created the right environment for online marketplaces for insurance to be born. 

Now that these online marketplaces are around, buyers have all the insurance companies out there at their fingertips. Moreover, because online marketplaces democratised the insurance landscape – where all insurance companies became equal irrespective of what commissions they pay to agents – you have access to a wider network of insurers and can compare their offers to each other. 

Especially when you are buying auto rickshaw insurance – or in other words, insurance for a business, you need to consider your bottomline and this means plugging any spending leaks. Purchasing insurance for a fleet of auto rickshaws is going to be an expensive proposition. The last thing you need is to be paying more than you actually need to. 

Step by step guide to getting the best deal 

Step 1: Visit iiflinsurance.com or the online marketplace of your choice

Step 2: Add your requirements and preferences

Step 3: Fill in specifics like the auto rickshaw registration numbers and the auto rickshaw registration dates 

Step 4: preferably choose comprehensive insurance so that you do not need to spend your own money in case of any damage to your auto rickshaws. 

Tips: 

• To bring down the overall cost of the insurance (and make just one payment instead of several in a year) consider a fleet insurance policy. 
• If you are only getting third party auto rickshaw insurance, you may want to consider buying additional cover for the driver as only the “owner-driver” is covered under this type of insurance.
• Compare the cost of a fireproof garage to the cost for TPFT and compare the cost of large scale repairs to the cost of comprehensive insurance. 

Step 5: hit the “get quotes” button to browse through a handful of offers.

Step 6:  if you want to see how to get lower rates, you can go back and edit your preferences and add ons

Step 7: pay up. In just a few clicks,  you have sorted out your insurance for the year. 

Conclusion

As a business owner, it is your duty to your business to keep expenditure low in order to keep earnings optimised. There is no need to cut corners – and indeed, we would recommend comprehensive auto rickshaw insurance over third party or third party fire and theft insurance – but there is certainly no need to excuse for you to pay more for anything, when the same product can be obtained for a lower cost, or when a better product can be obtained at the same price point.