We often get asked how can I lower my Home Insurance premium?
I put together a few things you can do to save hundreds off of your quote.
RAISE YOUR DEDUCTIBLE
When you raise your deductible (the amount deducted from a claim check) your premium goes down.
You want to raise your deductible to a level of affordability.
If you only have $1,000 in your checking account,
you don’t want to take a $5,000 deductible.
Your next claim would be a financially devastating event.
But if you have never made any claims other than weather related,
you need to begin to consider transfer of risk.
You want to transfer more of the risk to you and away from the insurance company by considering a higher All Other Perils deductible (not hurricane or named storm)
When you take a low deductible, you are telling the insurance company to take on more of the insurance responsibility if you make a claim.
When you do that, the insurance company charges you more on your New Orleans home insurance policy.
BUNDLE YOUR AUTO, HOME, UMBRELLA AND FLOOD WITH ONE INSURANCE AGENCY
Bundle your auto, home, umbrella and flood with the same agency and you will get discounts on your
- auto policy
- homeowners policy
- umbrella policy
- flood insurance policy
The majority of homeowners insurance companies do not write all lines of insurance
but they will give discounts if all of the lines of business are with the same insurance agency.
I talk to many customers who have their flood with one agent.
Their auto insurance somewhere else
and their homeowners insurance
they purchased through some agent their real estate agent recommended and they have no idea who their agent is or where they are located.
Multiple Discounts and the ability to make one phone call to know where all your insurance is serviced is a great benefit for you
so that when the next flood happens or
the next Hurricane Katrina makes landfall
you only have to contact one company
IMPROVE YOUR HOME SECURITY
Two discounts available are monitored fire alarm and monitored burglar alarm.
There is a race to the bottom with pricing right now for security systems.
The standard at one time was $40-$50/month for monitoring services.
Today monitoring alarm companies are cutting prices against their competition and you are going to benefit.
If you have not priced a new security system,
now is the time.
No more landline needed.
Some New Orleans home insurance companies will offer large discounts for monitored security systems (up to $300 annually)
But don’t just do it for the discounts.
Protecting your family and your house with a monitored security system in New Orleans is just a responsible thing to do.
ADJUST YOUR PERSONAL PROPERTY CONTENTS COVERAGE
For many years, homeowners insurance companies would provide you 50% of the home insured value for your personal property.
It was packaged and there was nothing you could do.
If you had a 400,000 house,
you would get $200,000 of contents coverage.
Regardless if you could only prove you had $75,000 of property
you had to take $200,000 of contents coverage,
but would only be paid for $75,000.
Now you can adjust your contents coverage to the actual replacement value of your property.
Determine the replacement cost of your property inside your house.
Specialty items like jewelry, guns and collectibles have limitations so don’t include these items in the total value of your contents.
You would need a personal articles scheduled stand alone policy
ADJUST THE INSURED VALUE TO THE REPLACEMENT COST
Due to the inflation guard endorsement on a homeowners policy,
the endorsement could make your insured value increase considerably if you have been with the same insurance company for a long time.
The inflation guard endorsement will automatically increase your insured value usually 1-3% every renewal in an attempt to keep up with the actual replacement cost to rebuild your house.
A quick rule of thumb is to take $100-$125 x total square feet of your house to get an estimate of the cost to rebuild your house.
$100 x 2465 square feet = $246,500 estimated replacement cost
This is just a quick guide to help you get an idea if your home is under or over insured.
A licensed home builder will give you a more accurate picture of the cost to rebuild your house.
What’s this all about?
Lowering your insured value on your home insurance policy to a point of under insuring your property is not a smart idea because you need enough money on the claim check to rebuild your house.
There are other ways to lower your New Orleans homeowners insurance premium.
We can help maintain replacement cost on your house and determine if we can help you lower your premium.
We work with your mortgage company to make the transition to a new homeowners insurance policy.
We make it easy for you to get the coverage you need for the value you want.
Give us a call today.
We’re here for you.