If you have a mortgage on your property on your home, then typically a condition of your contract with your mortgage provider will be that you have adequate buildings insurance. This protects both your financial interests in the property.
More than that though, buildings and contents home insurance is likely to prove a valuable safeguard against all manner of risks and perils – and the loss or damage caused as a result of those risks may cost you many thousands or hundreds of thousands of pounds if you do not have the relevant cover.
In our guide to home insurance, for example, we point out that one in three of us are likely to have our home burgled at some point in our lives – yet around one in four households in Britain do not have any form of home insurance.
Is it too expensive?
Is the reason for such an apparent disregard for the advantages of home insurance simply a question of cost? How much are you paying for your own home insurance, for example?
If the figures from the Association of British Insurers (ABI) are anything to go by, you are actually likely to be paying less now for your home insurance than you did in the past.
Figures published on the 9th of February 2017, for instance, show that the average cost of combined home building and contents insurance had fallen by 3% in the final quarter of 2016 compared to the previous quarter – with a reduction of 2% in just buildings insurance and 1% in contents insurance.
Taking the year as a whole, 2016 saw a 2% fall in the cost of combined building and contents insurance over the previous year – but increases of 5% and 3% in the cost of building insurance and contents insurance respectively when arranged separately.
One of the clear lessons from this is that is you are looking to pay less for your home insurance, it may certainly be worth cashing in on the reductions in prices of premiums by buying combined building and contents insurance, rather than each one separately.
Buying wisely
Getting your home insurance at a competitive price means buying it wisely.
Given the huge number of providers in this sector of the insurance market, that might be easier said than done. Not only do you need to make sure that you are comparing like with like, but you may also need a pretty comprehensive knowledge of the industry to satisfy yourself that you have shopped around all the available providers.
That is where the specialist knowledge and expertise of experienced brokers such as ourselves here at UKinsuranceNET may save you a lot of time and trouble – not to mention helping you avoid innumerable mistakes and pitfalls – by searching the market on your behalf.
Thanks to our experience and expertise, we are able to assess your precise needs, thoroughly search the market for suitable products, and come up with highly competitive quotes from which you may choose.
Take on a bigger excess
If economy really is the name of the game, however, you might also think about taking on a greater proportion of the risks yourself by agreeing to an increased excess in the event of any claim you make, in return for a reduction in the cost of your premiums.
Remember, though, that this might turn into something of a game of swings and roundabouts if the money you save in annual premiums has to be paid for by an increased contribution from you, by way of the excess, if you have to make a claim.
