How to Reduce House and Contents Insurance Costs

With the economy in a seemingly endless free-fall, many families are looking for any areas in their budget that can be tightened to reduce cost. Most people cut back on entertainment such as movies and restaurants first, and then proceed to make the hard choices – like forsaking unnecessary shopping trips and using generic brands of certain foods. All of these are tough choices that no family likes to make. One simple and painless way to see immediate savings in your family budget is to do everything you can to reduce your house and contents insurance costs.

You are probably like most homeowners – since purchasing your initial house and contents insurance policy, you’ve rarely if ever given that policy a second thought. Well, if budgets are tight and you are looking for savings, now is as good a time as any to pull that old policy out of mothballs and give it some scrutiny. The fact is that you could be saving hundreds of dollars just by shopping around for a better deal on your house and contents insurance policy. The truth is that you will never know until you take the time to shop around and see what deals are available.

When you begin to compare your current house and contents insurance plan with those of other companies, it is important to understand the difference between what you need to insure and what you want to insure. You absolutely need to insure the cost of replacing part or all of your home’s structure in the event it should be damaged or destroyed by a disaster. You may want to insure all of the contents of your home – jewelry and other valuables – but those decisions need to be considered as optional and subject to the needs of your budget. Odds are that you can save significant amounts of money simply by choosing to not insure certain contents.

So, for example, if you have diamond jewelry that you only wear on special occasions, consider getting a safety deposit box at your bank and store the jewelry there rather than at your home. If you do the same with other small valuables and you will definitely save on the cost of your contents premiums. To save on your house insurance, consider the safety implementations that you can make that will make your home more attractive to insurers: adding an alarm, fencing in a pool, and updating your fire extinguishers all help to reduce the insurer’s perception of your home’s risk.

Finally, before you even bother to shop around for a new policy, ask your current insurer if there are savings available within your current policy. Most insurers will not take the time to tell you that they can offer new savings for slight adjustments to your existing house and contents insurance plan. You can hardly blame them. After all, most of us sign up for our home insurance plan and then forget about it. Why should we expect the insurer to look for ways to save us money? Nevertheless, if you ask for an evaluation of your current policy with an eye toward reducing premium costs, most insurers will be more than happy to oblige – if only to retain your business.