How to cut insurance costs

Lowering your insurance costs is one of the easiest things that you can do to reduce your home expenses. To cut insurance costs all that you have to do is follow a few simple steps and you are on your way to saving up to 25% each month.

Step one:
Shop around. Taking the time to look around at different insurance companies can save you a good amount of money. You will want to ask your friends about insurance companies that they use or have used to see if they were able to get some good rates, but you can also check with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners to help choose an insurer in your state, they will also provide you with information on any complaints that are filed. Do not simply choose an insurance company based on the lowest rate to save money, you also want to make sure that they are a good insurance company that is financially stable.

Step two:
Raise your deductible to lower your insurance rates. Your deductible is the amount of money that you have to pay before your insurance company begins to pay your claim. Most insurance companies recommend that you have a deductible of at least $500, but if you can go higher, you should. Raising your deductible to $1,000 can save you, as much as 25% off your premium. Make sure that you look into raising all of your deductibles, which includes earthquake policies or windstorm policy deductibles.

Step three:
Do not confuse what you paid for your house with the costs of rebuilding your house. When getting insurance quotes you want to make sure that you only give them the value of the house, not the land that the house is on. This will help you avoid having to pay a higher premium than you should.

Step four:
Use the same insurer for both your home and auto policies. Doing this can save you anywhere from 5 to 15 percent off of your premium, some will make the discount even higher if you have more than one car or more than one home insurance policy with the. However, you are going to want to make sure that the discounted combined price is still cheaper than buying different coverage from different companies.

Step five:
Make your home more disaster resistant. You can find out from your insurance agent what steps you can take to make your home more resistant to windstorms and other natural disasters. Adding storm shutters, buying stronger roofing materials, or reinforcing your roof might allow you to save money on your premiums. If you live in an older home there are things that you can do to retrofit your home to make them able to withstand earthquakes or modernizing your heating and cooling systems to reduce the risk of fire.

Step six:
If you put in smoke detectors, burglar alarms or dead bolt locks you can save 5% off your homeowners insurance. If you decide to go with a more sophisticated sprinkler system or a fire and burglar alarm that rings the police or another monitoring system, you can save 15 to 20% off your homeowner's insurance policy. Do your research before installing the more sophisticated systems because they arte not cheap to install and not all of them will qualify for a discount.

Step seven:
Maintaining a good credit history, can help to save on insurance costs. More and more insurers are using credit information to price homeowner's insurance policies. Most states require insurance companies to advise you of any adverse action due to a bad credit score, but to be on the safe side you should verify the accuracy of the information that the insurer obtained.

Step eight:
When buying your home consider the cost of homeowner's insurance before you decide on a specific house. Sometimes buying a house that is close to a fire hydrant or one in a community that has a professional fire department can lower your premiums. Paying attention to the home that you are buying can cut your premiums by 5 to 15%.