Petaling Jaya, 8 June 2010 - ISM Insurance Services Malaysia together with their business partner Eurotaxglass’s today launched the ISM-ABI Future Values service. The Future Values service will provide companies and consumers with valuable insights into how the value of their vehicle will depreciate.

Speaking at the launch event, Santo Amoddio, Managing Director of Eurotaxglass’s Australia said “The biggest cost when buying a vehicle is depreciation. He said in Australia and Europe, the average depreciation during the lifetime of a vehicle was 47% of the total cost of ownership. The 2nd highest cost was fuel (14%) followed by insurance (12%)”.

Carl Rajendram, CEO of ISM Insurance Services Malaysia said “ The total cost of ownership breakdown in Malaysia was different due to the higher relative purchase price for the vehicle as a result of high taxes and the lower fuel and insurance cost compared to Europe and Australia. He said depreciation values in Malaysia varied significantly between makes and on average ranged between 35% and 65%. Rajendram said that in Malaysia, Korean and European brands had a higher depreciation cost component compared to Japanese and Malaysian brands. Fuel costs accounted on average for 30% and insurance cost only 10%.

Amoddio added that car companies worldwide invested heavily in ensuring their models outperform the competition when it came to used values. He said that depreciation or the future value of the vehicle was the single most important consideration factor for the price sensitive buyer. Fuel efficiency and maintenance costs respectively were the 2nd and 3rd most important factors.

“The ISM-ABI Future Values service will also promote the wider acceptance of Islamic leasing contracts for purchase of vehicles where the vehicle lease-end value is required”, added Rajendram.

Rajendram said that the Future Values Service will initially cater to fleets, leasing companies and Islamic banks. He said that with the largest team of actuarial and statistical analysts, most comprehensive automotive databases in Malaysia and partnership with the world’s leading provider of Automotive Business Intelligence, ISM was confident of achieving a similar high market acceptance for its new future values service as it had for its existing used car valuation service, CarPrices. Rajendram added that plans were underway for consumers to also gain access to the service to assist in selection of vehicles similar to the http://www.mycarprice.com.au service available in Australia.

The cost of the service depends on the package and it ranges from RM12,000 to RM25,000 per annum.