Femme Power

Photo courtesy of Nicodemus Valderrama

Many of us in the neighborhood lost a fortune during the Typhoon Ondoy disaster last September 26. Many of my neighbors lost their businesses, all of us were left with damaged home furnishings, and some had to reconstruct their homes.  Those whose cars were damaged thought they could rely on their comprehensive auto insurance policy…but not all of them were right.   Many of them were appalled to learn too late that their car insurance didn’t cover “acts of God” or “acts of nature” and so they couldn’t claim anything from their insurance company.

Sadly, even those car owners who were knowledgeable about the “acts of God” clause didn’t choose to pay extra for their insurance thinking that a horrible catastrophe like Ondoy (international code name Ketsana) could never happen in their lifetime. Who would have thought that a natural disaster of this biblical proportion would actually happen to them (or in my case, to us!)?

For a car to be covered by the “acts of God” policy, one has to shell out an average of about 0.7 percent of the vehicle’s insured value per year.   “For a P1-million car, this would translate to an additional P7,000 in insurance costs, on top of the P28,000 comprehensive annual premium for brand new units.” - Philippine Daily Inquirer, article written by Daxim Lucas.  For an ordinary individual, it doesn’t come cheap.

So if you are yet to get your car insured, would you choose to get an additional policy that would cover damages from floods, typhoons, earthquakes, tsunami, falling trees, landslides, etc? It would be wise to compare car insurance first before shelling out your hard-earned money.

Rare as it may seem but when natural disasters strike, will your insurance policy insulate you from further financial damage?  Or would you have to shoulder everything on your own?

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