Ultimately, when purchasing home insurance, the price you pay will depend on your circumstances (i.e. where your property is situated, your claims history) and the amount of cover you need. It’s also really important that you do not compromise on your home insurance cover just to get a cheaper premium – if the worst happens, you don’t want to find that you’re not covered.
That said, there are a number of ways to save money on your home insurance premium, and within this post we’ll take a look at some of these:
All home insurers provide quotes based on the ‘risk’. Essentially this means they evaluate the likelihood of you making a claim. You can therefore reduce your home insurance premiums by presenting yourself to the insurer as lower risk – examples of how to do this are detailed below:
Reduce the risk of burglary – increased security measures reduce your risk of burglary, and insurers will respond by reducing the cost of your premium, examples include: fitting a burglar alarm, installing high security locks, lighting and so on.
Reduce the risk of fire – fit and maintain smoke alarms.
Increase your policy excess – your excess is the amount that you are willing pay in the event of a claim. If you increase your excess your home insurance premium will be reduced accordingly.
Don’t claim unless you really have to -as with car insurance, many home insurance providers are now also offering no claims discounts for ‘careful’ policy holders (i.e. those who do not make claims). Now clearly there are circumstances under which you may have no choice other than to claim, however we would recommend that you consider the potential increase in premiums prior to claiming; and weigh up the pros and cons. Ultimately, you may find that it’s cheaper to pay for small repairs yourself, rather than claiming on your insurance.Pay only for the Insurance Cover you need…
This may sounds obvious, but make sure that you are only paying for the cover you need. For example, if your are renting a property, you will only need to pay for contents insurance, as your landlord will be responsible for ensuring that the building is covered.
Similarly, if you live in a block of flats or other dwelling where you do not own the entire building, again you may find that the buildings insurance is covered within any service charges which you pay.
Finally, even if you do own the whole building, your buildings insurance policy should only cover you for the potential re-build cost; not the total market value of your property.
Shop around for the best deal…
Make sure you shop around. Many people make the mistake of simply renewing their home insurance with their existing provider without checking out the other deals which are available on the market.
It’s really important to shop around to make sure you get the very best deal on your home insurance. Ideally, you should get a variety of quotes. HomeQuoteDirect is an independent broker, and as such will search their panel of insurers in order to get the very best deal for you.