Ways To Lower Your Home Insurance Premiums
Did you just get your home insurance renewal notice in the mail, only to notice that your rates have gone up again? If so, you may be looking for ways to get those premiums back to how they were before. Here are some tips to follow.
Understand Why Your Insurance Increased
The first thing that you should do is contact your home insurance provider and ask why your insurance rates went up. The reason that they give may end up surprising you. They may have decided that your area is more at risk for storm damage or something as simple as accounting for inflation. It is very likely that the cost of materials will increase over the years, making your home more expensive to rebuild from scratch if necessary. This is why you may see a slight increase from year to year.
You can always ask your insurance provider to reevaluate what they value your home at and ask them to insure you for a less expensive house. Many insurance providers add a cushion to your home's value to pad for additional expenses in a total loss situation, but simply asking can sometimes result in them reducing your coverage and lowering your premiums.
Request A Lower Deductible
Your home insurance deductible is how much you must pay your insurance provider before they start kicking in the rest of the money. Deductibles can be almost value, but common amounts include $500, $1,000, $2,000, or 1% of the home's value.
A good rule is to make sure that you always have enough cash on hand to pay for the deductible. When you first bought your home, you may have needed that small deductible because that's all you had at the time. However, now you have more money saved up and could pay a $2,000 or 1% deductible if necessary. Switching your deductible will lead to bigger savings each year, but also a bigger expense if you ever need to use your insurance.
Ask About Security Discounts
Home insurance providers will often provide discounts if you find ways to make your home more secure. If you were looking to do these things already, it could lead to unexpected savings in your home insurance premiums. Adding deadbolts to exterior doors or even a home security system that is monitored by a security provider could lead to saving that help offset the costs of those additional security measures.
Learn more from a homeowner's insurance provider.
