Average Price of Car Insurance 2023

Age and gender are two of the main factors insurance companies use when determining car insurance premiums. Insurers consider these characteristics as valuable information about your driving experience and the likelihood that you will get into an accident. The less likely you are to get into an accident based on these two factors, the less cost the company stands to incur by insuring you, and the cheaper the quote you will receive.

But this variation makes it somewhat difficult as a potential customer to know if you're being offered a fair rate, or if you're being ripped off. With that in mind, we've crunched the numbers to find the average cost of car insurance in Singapore depending on your age group and gender. We hope that this arms you with the knowledge you need to recognize a good deal when you see one.

Table of Contents

• Average Cost of Car Insurance by Age
• Average Cost of Car Insurance by Gender
• Methodology

Average Car Insurance Costs by Age

The ValueChampion team collected quotes from a collection of major insurers in Singapore to see how age affects the cost of car insurance. The following rates assume 5 years' driving experience and a No Claims Discount (NCD) of 0% for consistency, and as such do not take into account the significant discounts you would receive for more years of driving experience and a higher NCD. For example, for those who have clean driving records, their NCD could save them more than 50% on their car insurance premiums.

Average Car Insurance Cost for Drivers in their 20's

Generally speaking, insurance companies in Singapore charge the highest rates for younger drivers, whereas older drivers tend to get much cheaper rates. We found that drivers in their 20's are charged an average quote of S$2,165, 36% more than the average rate charged to drivers in their 40's (S$1,596). This is because younger drivers statistically pose a much greater risk of having an accident, due in part to their relatively fewer years of driving experience. In addition to a lack of driving experience, rates increase for younger drivers due to their propensity for reckless driving. This is exemplified when studying the quotes we collected, in which all drivers had the same driving experience but were of different age. As further proof of this, an online survey conducted by AIG Singapore in 2015 found that 63% of respondents aged 18 to 35 admitted to unsafe behavior on the roads.

Young and Inexperienced Driver Excess for Drivers in their 20's

Drivers in their 20's should also note that in addition to the higher premiums, they may well be obligated to pay a Young and/or Inexperienced Driver Excess (typically in the range of S$2,000 to S$3,000) on top of the mandatory standard excess they must pay whenever they file a claim. This is something that is very important to pay attention to, as different companies designate different ages under which the fee is imposed.

What does this mean? If your insurance policy has a standard excess of S$600, and a Young and/or Inexperienced Driver Excess of S$2,500, you'll have to pay S$3,100 out of your own pocket every time you have an accident before you receive any benefits from your insurer. If you're in your 20's, we highly advise you to read the fine print closely to see what you'll be obligated to pay before committing to a plan. It may be worth paying a slightly higher premium if the plan comes with a significantly lower Young and/or Inexperienced Driver Excess, or if you can avoid paying it at all. To learn more about which insurers offer the best deals to young drivers, you can read our guide to the best car insurance plans in Singapore.

Average Car Insurance Cost for Drivers in their 30's to 50's

While car insurance premiums decrease substantially for both male and female drivers in their 30's and 40's, we found that insurance premiums generally begin to rise again once drivers enter their 50's. This is because many insurers consider drivers to grow more accident-prone as they age. We found that drivers in their 50's faced an average rate of S$1,684, a 6% increase from those in their 40s.

Although some insurers in Singapore continue to increase premiums as drivers age into their 60s, this is not the case* for others. While many of the companies studied charged higher rates for men and women in their 60's than men and women in their 50's (AXA, Aviva, Budget Direct, FWD, HL Assurance & Sompo), Etiqa & DirectAsia actually charged lower rates for the 60 year old cohort. We strongly advise elderly customers of car insurance to pay close attention to this as they consider which plan to buy.

Average Cost of Car Insurance by Gender

We found that male drivers always pay more for their car insurance premiums than female drivers. Drivers in their 20's had the biggest difference of costs between genders, with men paying an average of 7.8% more than women for their car insurance policies. The difference in cost decline as drivers get older, and in fact, our 2020 data showed that women in their 50's and 60's pay slightly higher premiums than their male counterparts by a few dollars.

Men have to pay higher premiums than women do across all age groups because insurance companies consider them to be far more accident-prone and therefore a greater risk. In fact, Aviva's claims data for 2015 show that men are 1.4 times more likely to get into an accident as women.

These rates assume 5 years' driving experience and a No Claims Discount (NCD) of 0%, and as such do not take into account the significant discounts you would receive for more years of driving experience and a higher NCD. For example, for those who have clean driving records, their NCD could save them up to 50% on their car premiums.

Methodology

To arrive at our determinations of the average cost of car insurance for Singaporean consumers, we culled data and collected quotes from seven leading car insurance providers in Singapore.

In order to standardize our results, we needed to make certain assumptions about the type of plan and level of coverage sought by the average consumer. This study assumes standard comprehensive coverage, since comprehensive coverage is compulsory for owners driving cars less than 10 years old that are still under financing. Due to the costliness of cars in Singapore, this makes it the most common type of insurance plan bought. In an effort to ensure that quotes collected reflected comparable levels of coverage, we standardized coverage of medical expenses, personal accident benefits and loss of use for all the quotes we collected around what is generally considered a "value" plan that excludes other "bells and whistles" optional features.

The driver profile we used to get quotes held constant all variables apart from age and gender. He/she is a unmarried driver of a 2019 Toyota Corolla Altis 1.6, and a first-time car owner and relatively new driver, with 5 years' driving experience, no claims filed, and 0% NCD (No Claims Discount). He/she works indoors as a professional. Average costs reflect the mean of quotes collected for a male and female driver profile.

Quotes and information used for the purpose of this study were collected from 12 car insurers in Singapore. These companies were chosen based on their popularity with consumers in Singapore as well as the ease of acquiring quotes and detailed information about their plans.

Footnotes

*One good example of this is Liberty Insurance, which in collaboration with the Automobile Association of Singapore (AAS) and Singapore Optometric Association launched a new motor insurance plan in 2014 designed specifically for elderly drivers with good driving records, the AA Senior Motor Plus policy.

**The estimates here are ValueChampion's alone, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the insurance providers.

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