Insurance costs are normal expenses many people have, yet these costs can be a major part of a person's monthly expenses. If you currently feel like your home insurance bill is too high, there are options. In fact, there are always a lot of ways to reduce the premiums on your home insurance policy, but if you are not using the following two tips to save money, you should consider them. These are two of the best ways to cut your home insurance bill.
Increase your deductible
Some companies offer a dollar-amount deductible while others use a percentage, but the truth is that you can save money if you increase it. When you buy a policy or update it, you are always free to select a deductible that you are comfortable with. The lowest amount most companies offer is $500, but you can choose one that is much higher than this. According to one source, raising it from $500 to $2,500 could result in a savings of around $260 per year. If you are currently paying around $1,000 per year for insurance, a drop of $260 would be around 25%. This is significant.
The only downside you have with raising the deductible would be the money you would have to come up with if you ever filed a claim. To make sure that you could afford to pay the deductible, it is always a smart move to have the money set aside for the deductible in a savings account you could easily access if you ever needed to.
Choose the same company for home and auto
The second tip that many people already utilize is the process of bundling. Bundling just means that you are choosing the same insurance company for both your home insurance and auto insurance. According to CNBC, bundling these two types of insurance policies into one often results in a savings of 19%. Again, if you could cut your insurance costs by this much money, it would be a significant source of savings for you. With this option, you may not even have to adjust your deductibles. You would save the money just by choosing one insurance company to provide all your insurance needs.
If you do not think you could save any money with these tips, talk to an insurance agent. You might be surprised to find out that using these tips could help you save a significant amount of money each month.
