Home insurance covers both your buildings insurance and contents insurance but with so many home providers, how do you choose and get the best deal? Here are our 6 top tips to help get cheap home insurance.
1. Shop Around
Compare home insurance policies from a number of different providers.
Look for the insurance cover you need, don’t just focus on the cheapest premium as well as a cheap premium.
Compare home insurance from a number of providers using an insurance comparison website – such as Gocompare.com, Comparethemarket.com or Confused.com.
2. Consider Home Insurance Deals
With home insurance providers competing to get new customers many will offer new customer discounts or discounts for buying online for example.
Selected current top home insurance deals – as at 2 June 2017
- Direct Line – Buy online to save 35% on your premium. This is an introductory offer on combined contents and buildings insurance and excludes optional covers. Minimum premiums apply and the offer excludes SELECT Premier, the highest level of cover. See the Direct Line website for more information.
- Tesco Home Insurance – whether you’re a new Tesco customer, or renewing your cover, you’re always guaranteed to get their Clubcard discount. Plus, if you are a new customer, you get a 10% discount when you buy Tesco Home Insurance online
- Aviva Home Insurance – save up to 20% when you buy online, subject to a minimum premium and doesn’t include optional extras. See the Aviva website for more details.
3. Reduce the Risk of Damage or Loss to Your Property to Save Money
- Fit locks to all windows and ensure you have level 5 mortise deadlocks – by doing this you can normally get a discount on your contents insurance
- Burglar alarm – consider an alarm, fitted by a recognised alarm fitter supported by your insurance company and you may be able to save money on your policy. You may need to sign-up for an annual service too so you do need to consider the costs of this, compared to the saving you can make on your home insurance
- Neighbourhood watch – if there’s one for your area you may be able to get a discount
4. Consider Your Excess and No Claims Bonus
- By taking a higher excess (the initial amount you pay for any claim) than the standard set by the insurer you will get a lower premium
- If you have a good no claims bonus because you haven’t made a claim on your home insurance for some years this will reduce your premiums. As with car insurance, some policies give you the option to protect your no claims bonus
5. Only Take out Cover That Meets Your Needs
- Buildings insurance – remember you only need to cover the cost of rebuilding your property, likely to be much less than the market value that many think this relates to. Some policies have an unlimited or high buildings sum insured included as standard.
- Contents insurance – basically covers everything that moves within your house or everything you would take if you moved. A good way of checking what level of cover you need is to go through each of your rooms and calculate the value of its contents. Total all the room amounts to get the total contents cover that you need.
6. Separate Buildings and Contents Insurance Policies may be Cheaper Than a Combined one
– it could mean buying buildings insurance from one provider and contents insurance from another.
Critically though remember to get the home insurance cover you need – just getting a cheap premium is not the answer if you find that when you need to make a claim you’re not covered or underinsured.
Thanks for the tips. I think people often forget how simple, low cost measures can significantly increase the security of their home and offer a solid return on investment. Things like non-bumpable locks, outdoor lighting and intentional landscaping go a long way to deterring burglars.