Having your home and it’s contents insured should be considered a necessity and not just a luxury. If, heaven forbid, something did happen and you lost your home and everything in it rebuilding not only your home but your life as well would take years and massive amounts of money.

 Home Insurance can be expensive but the alternative can be ten, twenty, one hundred or more times as expensive. The following tips are proven to help lower the premium of some home insurance policies however always check with your insurance provider that you will receive a discount before going out and spending your hard earned dollars.

• Installing a Home Alarm and Smoke Detectors will usually provide you with the biggest premium discount however please be aware that most insurance companies have strict guidelines as to the type of alarm fitted. At a minimum they may require back to base monitoring of the Alarm system. This can add up over time however if you compare the money spent to the savings made on your insurance premium and the protection that an alarm system and particularly smoke alarms offers you and your family I think you will find it is money well spent.
• With some policies you can choose to pay a higher excess in the event of a claim and pay lower premiums throughout the year. This could be considered if you live in a low risk area and have not made many claims in the past.
• Combine all of your insurance policies together with a company that offers multiple policy discounts.
• Regularly compare your policies with what is available from other companies. The internet is a great source for tracking down insurance quotes and you don’t even have to change out of your pajamas! Remember to always read the fine print though. A insurance policy that is heaps cheaper than all the others is usually that way for a reason.
• Document everything! Consider photographing or video taping your home and the contents in it and place the photos and tapes in a well secured location.(Not inside the house!) This will speed up the claim process should the un-thinkable happen and provide proof of the items that you had.
• Get Guaranteed Replacement Value Insurance. This is so important, the cost of rebuilding your home has more than likely increased since it was built and extras such as cleaning the site in the event of a fire need to be taken into consideration.
• Make sure that any high-value items are listed separately on the policy. The insurance company may require some proof of ownership and a current valuation of the item.

 Implementing as many of those tips as you can should see you receive a good discount on your home and contents insurance. One thing that can’t be stressed enough is to read the fineprint, you don’t want to find out the hard way that you aren’t covered for something due to clause No. 12 in paragraph No.7, you know, the one you didn’t read!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 1st, 2008 at 7:44 am and is filed under Home Insurance, Home Security Systems. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.