As with most things in life, home insurance seems to cost more every year. However, if you receive a renewal reminder and you notice the premiums have crept up again, it’s worth spending a bit of time getting some comparison quotes to make sure you are getting the best available deal for the cover you want and need.
Of course, home contents cover is not obligatory, but there are few people who choose not to have it.
Just look around you and work out the value of a few electronic items in your home, add in the furniture in the living room, and you’ll soon be up to a few thousand at least. Imagine having to replace these items without insurance cover.
And anyway, the contents cover is often included in a combined buildings and contents policy, and combining buildings insurance and contents cover is one way to reduce your costs, as most insurers will offer a discount to a customer taking out both forms of cover with them.
Other things that may reduce your buildings and contents insurance quotes include:
Security measures
If you have a security alarm fitted and have window and door locks fitted this will probably mean a reduction in your premiums. Similarly, smoke alarms fitted in every room will reduce the risk you represent to an insurer and help lower your premiums.
Contents cover level
If you reduce the amount of contents cover to a minimum level offered by the insurer, and don’t name any specific valuables to be insured, this will reduce your home contents insurance quote.
Voluntary excess
By increasing the amount of money you are willing to pay as a voluntary excess before each claim, you are showing the insurer that you are unlikely to put in small or minor claims. Insurers usually reward a higher voluntary excess with lower premiums.
Take out the extras
Some insurers will automatically include optional extras on your home insurance quote. It’s worth double checking when you get a quote if there are any optional features that you can choose to take off. This will reduce your premiums.
Examples of optional features include personal possessions cover, which gives you cover for portable items that you take with you out of the home, like your mobile phone, camera or bicycle.
Another optional extra is accidental damage cover, which protects you against mishaps in the home that cause damage to your belongings – like a spilt cup of coffee over a light coloured carpet or a toddler jamming a toy into the DVD player and breaking it.
Home emergency cover is another extra feature you can include on your home insurance which provides for the costs of emergency repairs following something like a boiler breakdown.
Of course, these optional features all have their merits but if you want to bring down the annual cost of home insurance, you can take them off the quote.
Fine tuning your home insurance quotes in the ways mentioned above should help reduce the costs of home insurance. Then it’s down to you to decide which insurer offers the best cover at the best price.