August 16, 2006
Four-Step Guide To Lower Your Insurance
Homes, unlike most other possessions have very strong emotions attached to them. It takes years for a person to build a home, mortgage loans and other loans pull you down, but you somehow manage to hold onto your dream home and build on it. Only to see everything lost in a flood or hurricane. And what’s worse, your insurer may not even pay up with the excuse that you did not have the exact insurance coverage for say wind or flood. To make matters tougher, these policies are long and complicated and quite costly.
But it needn’t be that way. There are quite a few simple tricks that can help you save on your homeowners policy. Firstly, try to get more information about the various discounts or credits. Then find out from your insurance agent how you can qualify for them. Here are a few of the more popular ones:
Be loyal & Don’t claim: Yes, I know that sounds crazy. I mean you get yourself an insurance cover and then don’t claim for it! Well, that’s the catch. So getting down to details, if you’ve been with your insurer for three or five years you can expect a discount. Now if during this period, you make no claims, your discount is even higher.
Increase business with insurer: Don’t just stop at insuring your home, go ahead and insure your car as well with the same company. This can get you discounts of 10 –20 percent from Allstate, while State Farm offers a 10 percent discount. The best part is that this discount applies to renters and condo insurance as well.
Arm Yourself: Install alarms, smoke detectors, fire extinguishers and dead bolts – just about anything that makes your home more secure. You’ll pay much lesser on insurance this way. And the more sophisticated your security system, the bigger the discount.
Renovate, improve: Anything that improves a home's condition often earn a discount that decreases over time.
--
Did you enjoy this post?
