Ways of Getting Cheaper Home Insurance
Simple but effective ways of reducing your insurance premiums
Install Smoke Alarms
Smoke alarms are highly recommended from a safety point of view, but can also lead to cheaper insurance. If you have a smoke alarm, it's much more likely that a fire will be discovered and put out before too much damage is done.
Insurers will see this as reducing the risk you represent, and that will translate into lower premiums.
A related point: one of the biggest causes of household fires is smoking. If you don't smoke, or used to but have now stopped, make sure your insurance company knows. Once again - reduced risk means reduced cost.
Extra Cover Options
Many policies include 'free' extra cover options, for example accidental damage, cover for garden items, insuring your possessions while travelling etc. These are, of course, not free at all but built into the cost of your policy. If you don't need any extras, don't pay for them - look for a simpler policy from the same provider, or look somewhere else entirely.
Voluntary Excess
Most insurance policies include something called an excess, which means that you have to pay a certain amount of any claim's cost.
For example, if something worth £1000 was stolen and you made a claim on a policy with a £250 excess, you could only claim the difference of £750.
Many policies offer a smallish compulsory excess, and it is basically there to discourage small claims which cost more to the insurer in terms of admin costs than actual claim amount.
The higher the excess amount, the lower your premium will be - ask how much lower your premiums would be if you voluntarily took on a higher excess amount.
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