I purchased my first car at the age of 39! Now for most people that is quite ‘elderly’ to be the first time to purchase a car, but where we live has mostly excellent transportation via MRT, bus, taxi, etc. so we managed to get by without a car for quite a while. However, owning a car is a real education, as I suggested elsewhere.

Nowhere more so than getting good car insurance. We purchased our first car insurance from the company that sold us the car, which eased our transition into car ownership as there were enough new problems to deal with at the time. However, in retrospect, this may not have been a good choice.

We renewed the insurance in 2006 with some misgivings, but in 2007, when our insurance went up by more than 20%, and our coverage for the car went down, we actually decided it was time to do something about. So we went over the actual insurance form in detail, and discovered an almost arbitrary charging system over the previous two years. So, we took a red pen, and ruled out most of the expensive charges. I guess that was vengeance on the Insurance company involved.

Little did we know that we could compare car insurance just by visiting a website and getting the quotes. Geez! If we had known that, we would have been a lot more careful! Anyway, they offer a variety of insurance companies that can provide you with quotes. In addition, Insure121 also offers similar help on home insurance.

When purchasing any product for insurance, investment, banking, credit card, or whatever, be wise: read the small print, understand what the policy actually covers, NOT what you would like it to provide. If you are in doubt, talk it over with someone in the know. Make sure that there are NO unexpected surprises.