It is always nice when you are able to pay less for homeowner insurance and get the same or more cover. Below are 10 handy tips that you can carry out to get cheaper homeowner insurance premiums.
1. Increase your voluntary excess
Your insurance excess is the amount of money you agree to pay on a claim before the insurer pays the rest. For example, if you had a £200 excess and a £500 claim you would pay £200 and the insurance company would pay 300 pounds. If you choose to pay a higher excess, you will pay a lower premium. You can make substantial savings by doing this. When you are comparing policies, try changing the excess amount and see how much you can save.
2. Fit smoke alarms
Fire alarms are reasonably cheap, especially when you compare it to the cost of a home or the loss of a life. Most home fires are caused by cooking or smoking. Never leave your cooking unattended, don’t leave matches or lighters laying around and don’t smoke in bed. Be aware if you have small children that they love to play with all things exciting and new. They may turn the cooker on, light paper or cover lamps. All of these things may cause a fire in your home.
3. Install new locks
If you have just moved into a new home, you don’t know who might still have a key. The cost of changing your locks is far less than having all of your worldly possessions stolen from from your home. Make sure you fit quality locks – preferably five-lever mortise locks.
4. Have security lighting installed
Burglars prefer to work under the cover of darkness and don’t like to be in the spotlight. Use movement sensors with your lighting to surprise unwelcome visitors and keep them at bay. A blast of bright light will also raise attention with yourself or neighbours in the middle of the night.
5. Install time switches on internal lights
Your home is most at risk to burgulary when you are not present. Lights that are switched on at a particular time will give outsiders the impression that you are in the house when you are not. You can stagger the times lights come on and off in different rooms make it look like you are moving about the house.
6. Have an alarm system installed
Check with your insurer if they have a preferred supplier of home alarm systems. By installing a professional alarm system can often cut premiums by over five percent. That is a big saving, and it will give you peace of mind that your home is safe.
7. Don’t leave your keys under the mat
This will be the 1st place a burglar will look. If you need to hide your house keys, put a little thought into somewhere a thief would never think of looking. Also don’t leave your keys on a hook close to the front door where a burglar could hook the keys with a wire through the front letter box.
8. Insulate your external pipes
Pipes can easily freeze in the great British winter. By lagging (wrapping insulation around the pipe) your external pipes will reduce the chance of them freezing. If pipes do freeze you can often get leaks in cracked pipes or burn out pump motors as the water will not travel through the frozen pipe.
9. Regularly check you house and property for subsidence.
Subsidence is usually covered by your buildings insurance. It is important to identify movement as soon as possible to limit damage to you home. Look for cracks in walls and unevenness in walls and floors.
10. Only claim if you have to
The fewer number of claims you make, the higher your no claims discount will be. If a minor issue happens, consider carefully prior to claiming the item on your insurance. If you do submit a claim and loose your no claims discount, is this going to cost you more in the long run?
In order to save money on your insurance you need to compare insurance providers. Ideally you should do this once a year to make sure you are always getting the best price.
