Home Insurance Daily Blog

Prices these days are rising, and if your pay hasn’t been rising with it, then you need to save on some things. One of the things you can save on is home insurance premiums. If you don’t have one yet but plan to get one in the immediate future, the following tips will help you:

You need to shop around for the cheapest you can find. Eventhough you previously enjoyed your previous home insurance company, you might want to check out the others just to be sure. Things change and improve quickly.

It would be best, if you don’t go overboard in what you’d like to cover. If you’re not sure what it is that absolutely needs to be covered then a call to an insurance broker may be a good time as any.

Lastly, get those discounts! Ask your insurance agent or broker for ways to lower your rates. Sometimes, installing a home-security alarm may greatly reduce your premiums.

Going DIY (Do It Yourself) does have its benefits: no more labor expenses for contractors, more control on how you want it to look, etc. However, it does have its problems: you may fail to get home insurance because what you installed may not conform with standards, if you fail to finish your project, it may be a problem in renewing your home insurance.

Zurich’s technical underwriting manager, said: “Doing it yourself can be a great achievement but we would like to remind all DIY novices that they can often endanger themselves and their property, so if you are unsure, always call in a professional.”

For those who dream of the DIY life, but don’t want the risk involved, then calling in the right people: plumbers, carpenters or contractors, would best suit you , your house, and your home insurance.

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A nightmare situation would be that after a lengthy and enjoyable vacation, you go back to the house and see it unlocked and in disarray. You search for your jewels and valuable gadgets and find them missing. This is an unfortunate situation that happens to a lot of people when they go on vacation.

According to reports by Churchill Insurance, one in ten UK homes have been broken into while the occupants were out on holiday. The loss averaged £3,288 per incident. The thieves are focusing more on portable but expensive items instead of the usual big items like TVs and radios.

With home insurance, you can somewhat feel better. Claire Foster, spokesperson for Churchill Insurance said,

“While insurance cannot prevent burglary, it can provide reassurance that the monetary value of anything stolen is covered.”

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Buying a house can be a better alternative than constructing one from the ground up because it saves you more time. However, you need to take a closer look at the house’s history before you buy it, because if the previous home owner had a lot of “bad history” with the home insurance people, then you’re going to inherit it as well.

It may seem not fair, but it is plausible. Dr. Robert Hartwig, chief economist of the Insurance Information Institute in New York said,

“A home with a history of burst pipes would reflect a plumbing problem that hadn’t been addressed, so the new owner would probably face a higher premium until the problem is corrected. That should be a homeowner’s incentive to make sure his or her home is in good working condition.”

You can request for more info on the house’s loss history by requesting for a Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange or CLUE report. Ask for a homeowner insurer for assistance on this one.

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Having a bad credit record will bite you where the least you expect it. Not only will people trust you less with handling or borrowing money, but when companies hear that about you, it will affect how you deal with them as well.

A great example would be with home insurance firms or companies. Credit history is something these companies look into, as they want to be sure that the customers they’re pulling in have the capability to pay their premiums.

“Statistically, it has been proven that people with poor insurance scores are more likely to file a claim,” notes Heismeyer. “Historically, homeowners rates had been based on the characteristics of the structure itself. The insurance industry is now shifting the focus to include characteristics of the occupants, and insurance scores are one of those factors.”

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If any of you are using your gardens and sheds as temporary storage for any of your properties and stuff because you converted your lofts and garages to something else then you should read this. Nearly 650,000 UK households had items stolen from their gardens last 2007.

Unfortunately, according to an insurance company, 11 percent of households will spend more than £500 on garden tools, equipment, ornaments, and furniture, but many still fail to properly safeguard their belongings.

Head of risk and underwriting, Mike Pickard, said: “Even household items are now being stored outdoors, blurring the distinction between home contents and outbuilding and garden contents. Homeowners should check the limits of their insurance policies because some are relatively low and in the event of an ‘outdoor’ theft not everything may be covered if your shed is bulging with valuables.”

Lesson? Store your items properly.

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If you thought that keeping your bike within your house premises, think again. According to statistics made by Halifax Home Insurance, that a bicycle gets stolen every 65 seconds, more than the 70 seconds last year. Take note, that this are for those that were reported to the police.

One should check their Home Insurance if the bicycle was stolen on your property.

Head of underwriting at the insurance company David Rochester explained: “We encourage all who experience bike theft to report it to the police, otherwise they could miss the opportunity to make a claim.”
Mr Rochester added that steps such as a high security lock could help protect the bike, as well as the use of anti-pry devices and keeping it locked up when not in use.

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Trends ion the UK are showing that most people who go into retirement have to move out of their current residence to allow their pensions and insurance savings to stretch and last. Most people who are retiring today have little or not much in terms of money to splurge due to the fact that money has devaluated so much, it would be cheaper to move to a cheaper location outside major city centers where life is easier and goods cheaper from local farmers. The trend goes for those who live elsewhere for the pensions that used to amount to a million dollars might have been a huge sum back then but today has become just a sum of money you have to be careful in spending with. Retirees used to be well off for their hard earned pensions provide most of the costs of their retired life. Devaluation, inflation has all caused much upheaval in the value of money that if not wisely spent, is gone in a couple of years leaving them high and dry.

Insurance premiums have maintained a steady rise in the past years only to bottom recently which might be sign that companies are beginning to feel the crunch of the global economic crisis. The cost of oil has grown to such high levels that most people who have cars opt not to use them in order to save some more for other spending. Insurance rates have maintained a steady 6 to 7% increase per annum in the past years but have now leveled out. People are now thinking more about saving and getting to spend their money where they want to rather than save for a future date which is uncertain.

Insurance providers in the state of Hawaii have lost a case where they were complained to have asked for excessive taxes form the insurance industry. The money the state gathered form the said taxes were supposed to be brought into the State’s compliance resolution fund but was instead diverted to a general fund much to the dismay of the providers. The move of the state resulted in 2,000 lawsuits from the insurance association when they were asked to pay for 2 million dollars for the said regulation fund. The state has appealed the decision and is awaiting another round of hearing for they say there have absolutely been wrong judgments in their case.