The purchase of any kind of insurance has been made considerably easier these days by the plethora of online providers offering more or less the cover you are looking for.
In your search for home insurance, for instance, you might be tempted to search out the cheapest deal on offer.
But if that results in cover which fails to provide the protection you need for something as important as your family’s home, the purchase is likely to have proved a false economy – especially when you come to make a claim and only then discover the inadequacy of the cover you bought.
So, here are some tips and suggestions for securing the cover you need, but cover which also may allow you to save money on your home insurance:
Choose a specialist provider
- some home insurance providers go out of their way to match your particular, individual needs and circumstances to the products available (for example, if you are planning to buy a house in South Dakota, then an Aberdeen State Farm Agent could be better equipped to find a cover that perfectly suits your residence);
- with their experience and expertise, such brokers can do the legwork for you to ensure that you obtain suitable cover at a competitive price, meaning you don’t have to shop around for cover yourself – potentially saving you time and money;
Avoid overinsurance …
- the Association of British Insurers (ABI) warns against the temptation to overinsure – by adding optional extras which you may hardly if ever need on to your basic home insurance policy;
- one area where this may be especially prevalent is in estimating the total building sum insured – the estimated reconstruction costs in the event of a total loss (as well as clearing the site if the property has been completely razed to the ground);
- if you over-estimate that cost and arrange too high a total building sum insured, you are effectively paying for cover which you do not need and may never be able to claim;
… but also avoid underinsurance
- whilst avoiding any temptation to overinsure, make equally insure that you do not underinsure;
- underinsurance most commonly occurs when establishing the value of the contents of your home – if you underestimate that value, your contents insurance may not provide sufficient cover for the repair or replacement of stolen, lost or damaged items;
Maintain your home
- A well-maintained home is less likely to run into disaster, meaning you won’t need to call up your insurance company to make a claim as often. Key exterior areas to maintain include the roof, the windows, the doors and the damp course. Maintaining these aspects of your home ensures it can withstand even the worst storm or flood, or even attempted theft. Get in touch with a reputable roofing company that carries out roof installations and repairs if your roof could do with some work, and give the rest of the exterior a good inspection too.
- Meanwhile, the interior of your home should not be forgotten. Check the wiring and plumbing and, if you have them, the gas pipes too. When not maintained, these things can cause fire, flooding or even an explosion, which is obviously going to cost your insurance an arm and a leg. Keep things maintained and you avoid having to make a claim.
Combine your building and contents insurance
- although you may buy your building insurance and contents insurance separately, there are invariably discounts to be earned by combining both elements of your home insurance into a single policy with the same insurer;
- a combined policy may avoid disputes between insurers if you are claiming for loss or damage which affects both the building and its contents (as the result of flooding, for example);
Accept a higher excess
- different parts of your home insurance typically attract different levels of excess – a claim for damaged contents, for example, might attract an excess of 100, whilst for a subsidence claim it might be 1,000;
- by agreeing to increased excesses across the various headings of your home insurance, you are likely to enjoy a reduction in the cost of the premiums you pay – but remember that your contribution to the settlement of any subsequent claim also increases.
Finally, never allow your home insurance to automatically renew without seeing what all your options are. As a recent news article reported, research showed that customers renewing their home insurance with the same insurer after more than a year were likely to pay an average of 75 more than a new customer.
Summary
When buying home insurance, the cheapest policy may not always be the most suitable. Instead, the key lies in finding cover that represents good value for money – providing what you need at a competitive price.
Fortunately, it is possible to achieve both these aims and still save money on your home insurance.