Home Owner Insurance – Why You Need It and Don't

Author: David H Thomson
Source: ezinearticles.com

There are two different types of home insurance cover. One is home contents insurance, which is typically entirely up to you whether you take it out or not. The other is buildings insurance, which the mortgage lender generally insists on you taking to cover the outer shell of your home as well as the fixtures and the fittings. Both types of insurance may work in your favour if the worst were to happen and you were to lose everything say as the result of a fire.

What you may find included in contents insurance

Contents insurance generally covers anything in your home that you might take with you if you were to move home. This means all of your possessions should be included in the insurance policy and need to be counted in with the cost when you are totaling it all up to calculate the sum insured.

You are generally covered with this type of insurance for fire, theft, water and flood damage, and vandalism. You may find the insurance policy may also cover accidental damage to such as TV screens, mirrors or spillages of paint on carpets, however not all providers offer accidental cover as standard. You may often have to pay for this protection. Check your policy to see what the cover entails.

What you may find included in buildings insurance

Buildings insurance of course covers the shell of your home in the event that it was destroyed. If this happened, the policy covers the cost to rebuild your home from scratch along with clearing the site for rebuilding to begin. Along with the shell of your home being covered, this type of home insurance cover also protects anything in your home that is not removable. This means that such as your fitted kitchen and bathroom are generally covered in the insurance policy.

You are usually but not always covered for damage caused by fire, theft, storm, structural, flooding and subsidence. However, there may be limitations and exclusions in the insurance policy so therefore you may want to go over these very carefully.

How you may save on your home insurance

Paying more excess than the insurance provider asks for on the insurance policy may allow you to make savings on your insurance. Insurance providers always ask for a certain amount of excess, which is the money you have to find in the event of a claim before the insurance provider takes over and pays the rest of a claim. While there is a minimum amount, there is typically no limit as to how much you choose over this. The only drawback to offering a large amount of excess is that you need to find this sum from your own pocket as a lump sum should a claim be made. If you make more than a single claim and have a large amount of excess, you may lose any savings already made on the insurance premiums.

To help keep down the cost of your home insurance cover you may want to install security around your home. This might be by way of a good quality alarm system, locks on the doors and windows and put security lighting up around the exterior of your home. Any security measures may help you to lower your premiums and of course provides peace of mind for you and your family.

David Thomson is Chief Executive of BestDealInsurance, an independent specialist broker dedicated to providing their clients with the best insurance deal on their home insurance, car and life insurance.

Author: David H Thomsonbr
Source: ezinearticles.combr
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Any consumer knows that shopping around and being shopping savvy saves money. Shopping for staple items in a discount supermarket is cheaper than shopping in a high-end store. Buying a new TV in a department store that is having a 10% discount day is cheaper than buying it the day before or the day after. Buying home insurance cover is really just the same. People may find that they save money by shopping smart. Lets look at five ways you may be able to save some cash on your premium costs.

1. Increase security — a home that has approved door and window locks, smoke alarms and even alarm systems may be cheaper to insure than one that has none of these options. Even if you dont want to spend money on installing an alarm, fitting a few window locks and a couple of smoke alarms may not cost much but it may save you money.

2. Dont over insure — many people buy home insurance cover without actually thinking about what their stuff is actually worth. Some may just pull a figure out of the air because it sounds like enough and sometimes this is actually way too much. Premium costs get higher in line with the cover you take out. If you take the time to find the true cost of your possessions then you may get the cover you need without paying over the odds for it. Do make sure that whatever figure you decide to insurance your home and contents for, that you are not under insured.

3. Talk to one insurer — if you need buildings and contents cover at the same time then you may find that it is cheaper to buy a joint policy than two individual ones. Taking out other kinds of insurance policies with the same insurer may also qualify you for discounts on the cost of home insurance cover so this may be worth investigating.

4. Talk to a new insurer — renewal costs for home insurance may well be more expensive than the prices you may pay as a new customer with a different company even though you may have a no-claims discount to add to the mix. It may be a good idea to shop around to see what is on offer rather than sticking with the same company year after year.

5. Get expert help — unless you work in the home insurance sector there may be no way of listing all the insurers and policies that may suit you. Not knowing where the lower costs are may mean that you end up paying higher premiums. A home insurance website, however, that specialises in helping consumers to find insurance quotes may do the job for you.

Some people may assume that the easiest way to arrange good home insurance cover is to approach a company that they have heard of. This may be easy and they may get a good enough policy but they may not know if it was cost effective unless they compare quotes and terms. Again, you may find, if you dont have the time or experience to shop around for yourself, that using an online home insurance specialist may be useful to help you compare quotes quickly and effectively.

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