Are UAE road conditions driving consumers to spend more when it comes to car insurance?

Dubai - MENA Herald: A growing awareness over the importance of road safety could be leading UAE consumers to buy car insurance based on the level of cover, rather than simply selecting the cheapest option. This is according to data from the Middle East’s leading finance comparison site compareit4me.com, which shows that 85 per cent of customers buying car insurance through the site will not opt for the cheapest policy, choosing instead to spend more on better cover. These findings tie in with a new report from the UAE Road Safety Monitor which shows that 56 per cent of motorists feel that driving in the UAE is more dangerous now than it was six months ago.
compareit4me.com CEO Jon Richards said, “Our data shows that the public are more interested in cover than in price. Many of our insurers offer a range of products with varying levels of cover. We see the mid-range products as being by far the most popular with about an equal number of customers opting for premium or basic products.”
Last year the RTA reported that Dubai has one car for every two people, placing the city high on the global ratings for vehicle density, while the Ministry of Interior reported that the major cause (21 percent) of fatalities on the roads in 2015 was lane swerving. According to a study commissioned by QIC (Qatar Insurance Company), this frightening statistic is in no small part linked to misunderstanding and misuse of indicating.
Commenting on the findings, Frederik Bisbjerg, Head of Group Retail & Executive Vice President - MENA Retail at QIC, said, “I was surprised by the fact that such a large portion of people say they actively use the indicator, but all other statistics indicate that they don’t. Also, it seems people feel accidents will happen to the others and not to them, which again shows they focus more on how other drivers behave rather than looking inwards.”
The possibility of facing costly repairs is evidently playing on car owners’ minds, as is the problem of being without transport should an incident occur. compareit4me.com’s Jon Richards added, “In addition to spending on good quality car insurance policies, we also see many customers topping up their cover by purchasing add-ons such as Personal Accident and Replacement Car.’’