Insurance is often viewed as one of the “necessary evils” of life; while it is never exciting to pay insurance premiums, the possibility always exists that you will one day need the benefits that insurance offers. You certainly don’t want to leave your home uninsured, or underinsured, with the possibility of a hurricane being ever-present in Southwest Florida. Even though insurance is extremely important, it’s still a great idea to search for every way possible in which to lower insurance premiums. Avoid paying too much by doing the following:
Purchase Auto and Home Insurance Together
Many companies can provide both common types of insurance together in a bundle, and will give you a discounted rate by getting both policies through them. Some companies that sell homeowners, auto and liability coverage will take 5 to 15 percent off your premium if you buy two or more policies from them, so do your research and find out if this will work better for you.
Raise Your Deductible
Deductibles are the amount of money you have to pay toward a loss before your insurance company is required to pay on your claim. Therefore, the higher your deductible, the less your insurance company will have to chip in after an incident and the less monthly payment they will require from you. Most insurance companies recommend a deductible of at least $500. If you can afford to raise your deductible to $1,000, you may save as much as 25 percent off your monthly payment.
Improve Home Security
You can usually get discounts of at least 5 percent for a smoke detector, burglar alarm or dead-bolt locks. Some companies will even offer to cut your premium by as much as 15 or 20 percent if you install a more sophisticated sprinkler system and a modern alarm that calls the police, fire or other monitoring stations. The thought process behind this is that with that type of technology in place, there is a lower chance of a significant loss and the insurance company is less likely to need to pay out on your claim.
Add Disaster Protection
Installing hurricane impact windows on your home is one of the proven ways to lower insurance premiums while adding an additional element of safety to your home’s construction. Any sort of protection, like hurricane shutters and improvements that help strengthen roofs are on the checklist of “hurricane mitigation additions,” or improvements that can lower premiums by 45% off the highest rates.
Seek Out Niche Discounts
Many insurance companies give discounts for a variety of qualifications you may not know about. For example, if you're at least 55 years old and retired, you may qualify for a discount of up to 10 percent at some companies. This is due to the fact that since retired people stay at home more than working people, they are less likely to be burglarized and may spot fires sooner, too. Retired people also have more time for maintaining their homes.
As a Southwest Florida homeowner, insurance to cover your house and surrounding property is definitely necessary. But you don’t have to pay an exorbitant amount to be fully covered. By taking a few steps, like installing hurricane-strength impact windows, and your monthly payments can be drastically lowered. Download our Impact Windows Pricing Kit and receive an easy-to-follow measuring guide, window sizing chart, and step-by-step instructions on how to use the Window Pricing Calculator.
