Insuring your house or your car can be expensive. However, low cost insurance is possible. You just need to know how to find the best rate for you and your family.
For years I’ve had this unsettling feeling that we were paying more than we needed to for our combined house and vehicle insurance. However, I wasn’t really sure how to go about finding a cheaper option and every time I thought of doing it I got overwhelmed at the process and possible paperwork. Then, last year when we moved to our new home our insurance went up considerably, due to now owning a bigger home than previously, along with a wood stove and oil heat. The large monthly bill was constantly bothering me, mainly because I knew there had to be a cheaper option. I had even talked to friends to discover many of them were paying less than us, even though their homes were bigger or they owned multiple wood stoves to heat their houses. It wasn’t making sense to me that we were paying so much.
Finally, after almost a year of deciding if we should do anything about it, or if it was worth the trouble, we decided it was silly to pay so much just because we didn’t want to do the work to make the switch.
I don’t know about you, but I often find taking that first step difficult. Even when it comes to something like insurance. It’s easy to get “stuck” doing what you are doing, even if it means paying more, because it means no added work trying to find a better deal.
Thankfully, even though it was a bit of a hassle, it was well worth it to look into ways of finding cheaper insurance. Today I want to share with you some tips on how to save money on insurance. For the purpose of this article, we are going to discuss house AND auto insurance.
How to Find Low Cost Insurance
Shop around. This was the major way we saved big on our insurance. When we discovered our insurance was going to go up, yet again, because we had purchased a used 2010 minivan as opposed to the 2005 minivan we had been previously been driving, I decided it was time to shop around.
I emailed a local insurance company that has a good reputation in our area and thus began the process of back and forth emails of asking a ton of questions! It became a bit overwhelming, but it was definitely worth it and they were extremely helpful in answering all my questions. We discovered we could be paying over 800 dollars less a year on our combined insurance if we switched. 800 dollars is a HUGE difference. I nearly fell over in shock when they told me! I couldn’t believe we had paid that much every month when we could have been saving 800 or so dollars all these years!
Install a newer heating system. When we did an inspection of our oil tank and VERY OLD furnace, we discovered there was a problem with our oil tank that could cost close to 1000 dollars to fix. We couldn’t get insured without the problem being resolved, not to mention it was a safety hazard. However, we knew if we switched to propane we could not only pay less for heating (oil in our area is way more expensive than propane) but it would also bring down our home insurance costs a little more as insurance companies prefer propane over oil -at least where we live.
We knew that even if we had fixed the oil tank, the very old furnace we owned could die soon as well, so for us, it made sense to take that 1000 dollars and put it towards changing our heating system. It was a better option and would actually save us money in the long run, rather than doing a quick fix to our oil tank that could potentially cost us more down the road.
Combine your insurance. As I said earlier, our auto and home insurance are combined and provided by the same company. Often you save money by bundling your insurance policies together.
Pay yearly instead of monthly. If you can afford to pay annually instead of a monthly bill, you will often save on administration fees and premiums.
AFFORDABLE AUTO INSURANCE
Ask about discounts. If you qualify for some requirements, it may provide you with affordable auto insurance. Things like being accident free, you are over 25, you are a good student or took a driving course, you have winter tires on your vehicle, or your vehicle has low mileage. Our insurance company shared with us an app we could download to our phones that tracked our driving habits. If after so many months we had a good report, it would drop the cost of our insurance down a bit. There are so many opportunities to get discounts on your insurance. Be sure to talk to your insurance provider on what discounts they can give you.
Raise your deductible. A higher deductible means you will pay less in monthly payments. Make sure your deductible isn’t too high though that you couldn’t afford to pay it out of pocket if necessary, but raising it to the next level up may be helpful in staying within your monthly budget. This goes for both your auto and home insurance.
SAVE MONEY ON INSURANCE BY MAKING CHANGES
Low cost insurance doesn’t have to feel impossible. As long as you put in a little effort, do a little research, and talk to your insurance provider, you can save money on both auto insurance and home insurance. Sometimes it can feel like paying that monthly insurance bill is a financial strain and can feel pointless, especially if you have never made a claim, but insurance IS necessary. Aside from the fact that most places legally require that you have insurance, if you don’t have coverage and something happens – you get in an accident or your home floods or burns down, the costs can be devastating and crippling.
Also, if you do switch insurance companies, be sure there is no gap in your insurance coverage. I have seen it where people have switched companies but were not covered for a few days or so, and a crisis happens. While you think it isn’t going to happen to you, it very well could. Don’t take that risk. It isn’t worth it.
Even though it can feel like a hassle, if you feel you may be paying too much for insurance, try some of these tips to see if you can pay less. You won’t regret going through the trouble of making some changes in your insurance when your monthly bill goes down, and most insurance companies are happy to spend time answering any questions you may have and will walk you through the process. Remember, any money you save on your insurance policy means you can free up that money for other needs!
Insurance is one of the biggest categories in your budget that you can save money on. Don’t wait for years to make a change like I did.
We found out in the last year that the big name companies have a smaller company too and they don’t have the advertising overhead to cover so the rates are way less. We thought we had great rates but after doing some research we switched to Safeco and saved $700 a year on home and auto combined and we have been very happy with them. We had a huge limb fall out of a tree and damage our vehicle and they were great about every step of getting the repair done and it was painless. My husband loves the process of calling around and talking to people and doing things like changing the insurance for which I am so thankful.
That is awesome! Yeah, I made my husband do the phone calling. Haha. I am okay with the emailing, the phone calling not so much.