Droplet - Just what in the world...

Two days ago, NTUC Income launched their Droplet Insurance Plan- It is essentially insurance for your Grab rides on Rainy days. Yup, you read it right, insurance for your Grab ride in Singapore. 

Source: droplet.sg

My initial thoughts were... seriously WTH... I would give it to them if they launched this plan on 1 April but nope, it was launched on 24 Oct 2018. They are dead serious. 

There is a dedicated website for Droplet and not like a sub-page of Income web site (which might be so also because this could be a real joke and they did not wanna implicate Income website). A search on "droplet" on Income website also strangely yields no results (at least till today). Perhaps their website is not updated yet.

My initial thoughts were WTH, my thoughts now are still WTH! What were they smoking when they came up with this insurance plan? Are there no other areas they can think of to insure? Anyway, in an article, Income did shared "Droplet is a blue-sky response to consumers’ pain point – surge pricing due to rain – when they book a ride on ride-hailing platforms."

[Anyway, this post, like every other post in Frugal Singa is solely my personal opinion and based on my own usage of Grab rides so we can always agree to disagree.]

So this is how it works...

Source: droplet.sg

Commuters will need to buy the insurance at least a day ahead i.e. you cannot buy for the day itself when you wake up and see the dark gloomy clouds outside your window and decide to sleep in and Grab in for work. 

Buying it earlier (couple of days in advance) also means you will pay lesser but the max you pay is $9.60 a day (buying one day before). There is a minimum coverage of 2 days each time you buy i.e. minimally it will cost you $19.20 unless you bought it in advance.

Droplet will pay up to 60% of your trip fare if it is raining at the point of your pickup. 

On their website, Income robots will ascertain whether it was raining at the date, time and start location of your ride using their database of weather records gathered from NEA. Personally, I really do not know how does this will work out. If it was indeed raining heavily when you boarded but their Robot / database say nope, then its your words against theirs, which is not a very good position to be in, especially when it comes to insurance. 

Perhaps you should take a video of yourself boarding Grab and show its pouring outside or on the Grab app, it will indicate that "Raining Ride" (both are quite ridiculous actually). 

You can submit unlimited number of ride claims a day but there is a claim cap of $50 a day. Only Grab rides are covered for now, other smaller ride hailing platform e.g. Ryde, Tada rides are not covered, but there are plans to extend to others by the end of this year. 

If we run some numbers, assuming you pay $9.60 a day, and Droplet covers up to 60% of your rainy Grab ride fare, i.e. you would be "better off" so long as your ride is >$16, which is actually quite common in itself. 

But question is, how many rides do / can you really take within the rainy period? Since you need to buy at least 2 days worth, you will need to spend a min of $19.20 which if you only take one raining day ride, it needs to be >$32 to be "better off", which is a little less common. And also, we typically take a cab to a place, spend some time there and when we leave, rain might have already stopped which also means your insurance cover has "ceased". 

Last but not least, if you need to plan ahead i.e. buy Droplet in advance, wont a better alternative is for you to arrange a Grab Hitch (zero surge pricing) ahead? As a Grab passenger and user of Hitch, I am quite happy with the % of acceptance of Hitch rides request. Best thing is Hitch fare cap of $15. Admittedly, some of your hitch request might go unaccepted, but likewise, some of the days you buy insurance cover for will not rain as well. 

Overall, I feel Droplet is a really strange and "uncharacteristic of Income" type of plan. 

Signing off for now...
Frugal Singa

Wake up earlier, save some money!

Credits: SMRT

Unless you drive, you would probably be like me who have to squeeze in the MRT (or bus) every morning to get to work and squeezing in trains ain't too fun. 😒

This is an old article, but the 50 cents discount for pre-peak weekday for MRT travel is still valid, until the end of 2018 at least. 

The government had previously also tried other schemes, i.e. Free Pre-Peak Travel scheme, which allows those who reach any of 18 MRT stations in the city area before 7.45am to have free rides. However, it was rather localised within the city area and tapping out before 7.45am is no easy feat. Therefore, i believe the new (ok not so new now) scheme should work better, considering it is applicable to all 157 MRT and LRT stations and you just need to tap in before 7.45am.

Assuming you tap in before 7.45am each morning for Mon-Fri, you will save $2.50 a week which means you could save about $130 for 52 weeks. Not a terribly big sum but if the government gives you $130 in 50 cents installments for a year, do you not take it?

If you are already travelling at around 8am, why not try setting out 15 mins earlier and get a 50 cents discount? It is like if you set off 15 mins earlier, you will definitely find 50 cents lying on the ground for your taking. 😜 Ok, besides the 50 cents, there are also many benefits of getting to work early e.g. leaving work earlier (hopefully you are not those who only can leave after your boss leaves), already cleared your inbox before your colleagues even walk into office, have a quick breakfast in office. But all that aside, it makes for a better travelling experience because the trains are considerably less crowded before 7.45am. Don't take my word for it, go see check it out yourself. 

Sometimes we don't see it, we don't feel it. Wonder it will work even more effectively if we had MRT staff standing at the gantry giving out 50 cents to everyone entering before 7.45am, though that that would go against our push towards a cashless society and push up cost cos we need extra MRT staff. haha...  

Not this 50 cents...

Hopefully the government see enough benefits of de-congestion that it outweighs the cost and the scheme will be extended, cos i think it is not a bad scheme actually, though Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan said it was not sustainable for taxpayers to subsidise the increasing costs of the public transport system and I believe many of you would have seen a more recent article sharing that bus and train fares may rise by up to 4.3% next year. 🤑

While we cannot do anything about the proposed increase in fares next year, we can go get our 50 cents each morning still at least for the next couple of months till Dec 2018.

Gotta catch'em when they last!

Frugal Singa