By Joey Alarilla
INQUIRER.net

SURE, people know the importance of getting insurance when buying a new car, but sometimes we might think this isn’t the case when it comes to second-hand vehicles.

“People sometimes get the wrong impression that only brand new cars should be insured,” Lea Casamayor, chief managing officer of Korean information technology company Sabiclub.com Corp. and business unit head of Autolink.ph, told Roadtrip in an e-mail interview. “But whether it is second-hand or brand new, it is still your property and thus should be insured if one wants to protect his or her investment. Especially [since] not all second hand or pre-owned cars can be bought cheap; they come with hefty price tags too. Car insurance is also a requirement if you will purchase a second-hand car through a bank or private financing. We will utilize our site to educate the people on the importance and convenience of having car insurance.”

Autolink.ph. which is an online portal for second-hand cars, recently partnered with Malayan Insurance to create the Autolink Automobile Insurance. This car insurance product will be offered to the car dealers of Autolink.ph and the Korean clients of Sabiclub.com.

Casamayor said they hope to launch the product by the first week of February.

The new car insurance product is supposed to leverage on Sabiclub.com’s experience in addressing the needs of the Korean community in the Philippines, allowing Malayan Insurance to gain a foothold in this growing market.

Asked how big the Korean community is in the Philippines, Casamayor replied: “Right now, more than half a million Korean tourists visit the Philippines and more than 100,000 [have] decided to live here permanently. The concentration of Korean population is within the popular cities in Metro Manila. I cannot give a definite number… but we can say that it is quite a considerable figure.”

She stressed the expertise of Sabiclub.com when it comes to addressing the needs of the Korean community in the Philippines.

“Sabiclub has been doing business with the Korean community for the last seven years. Our businesses cater to the Korean community, like the Station 168 Internet café, web development and others. We also have Koreans employed in our company. We know their expectations, their needs, business standard and culture,” she said.