Insurance is something that most people have in one form or another. You may have life insurance and buildings insurance because you have a mortgage or car insurance for your vehicle, which you have to have. You may choose to have health insurance, contents insurance, dental insurance, pet insurance or any other type which is available.
Insurance is something that, unless we have to take it out, many of us choose to have to give us peace of mind. We will know that if anything happens to our property, vehicle, pet or ourselves we will be able to get some money that will help cover the costs involved with that. Some people choose to take the risk and only have the insurance that they have to get and do not pay for any other. Obviously this is a way that you can save money, but you may not be prepared to take that risk and may rather pay out the money so that you feel that you are safe. If this is the case, then you may be looking for ways to reduce the amount of money that you are having to pay so that you are not paying too much.
To start with it is worth looking at the different insurers and comparing their prices. You can do this online using comparison websites, but they do not include every possible insurer. You could also use a broker although they may not look at every insurer either. It could be worth doing some additional looking yourself. The risk of using the very cheapest insurer is that they may not be providing you with everything that you want. Make sure that you think about what sort of insurance cover you need and want and check that the insurer that you choose will have that for you. You may not be completely sure, so you could look at your current policy and consider whether that covers you for everything you need or if you need more. For example, for contents insurance consider what value of contents you have and also what value they are and whether you could afford to replace any yourself. If you can then you could have a larger excess on the insurance which means that you will pay out a certain amount first and this will keep your premium lower because you will not make claims for lower value items. Having a larger excess on all insurances can be useful to keep your premiums down on those, but you do need to be sure that you are happy with doing that. It will mean that you will not be able to make lower value claims and therefore will need to find the money for those yourself.
It can sometimes be cheaper if you get insurance for a selection of things all from the same company. Perhaps all family members having car insurance with the same company or having buildings and contents insurance with the same company may save money and it is worth looking into whether this could be a way of saving money.
It is also worth thinking about the items that you are insuring and how you could possibly make them cheaper to insure. This may sound odd but if you get a smaller, cheaper car, for example, then it will be cheaper to insure. It is worth thinking about everything that you have insurance for and what you might be able to do to lower the cost. It could be worth talking to your insurance company before doing anything though as it may not be as obvious as it seems. For example, you may think that getting a burglar alarm will make the home cheaper to insure as there is a deterrent for burglars but an insurance company ill see it as a sign that you think the property is vulnerable and may charge you more. Also, if you forget to use it and there is a burglary then the insurance company will not pay out. Therefore it is really important to make sure that you know exactly what you can do to lower the insurance and not make any changes until you have checked.
