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| 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...
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| 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.
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
