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My home insurance is due and the bill just seems huge to me. $733 for $275,000 in coverage on the house, $259,000 personal property, $500,000 family liability, $2,000 guest medical, sewer protection, special personal property and a $500 deductible.
The sewer protection is costing $65/yr, special personal property was $56, and I could save $67 by moving to a $1,000 deductible.
I've never had to make a claim before and I'm not sure if I'm over insured or not. Thoughts?
Dave
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If that is for the entire year, it looks about right. Works out to $2 a day for piece of mind.
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$1,000 deductible.
Are you (or can you become) a member of a credit union?
Best rates I found for auto/home were via my credit union (all state employees), so I switched for a 20% savings.
Make sure you keep that "sewage backup" coverage - those can be NASTY.
If the special personal property is small and valuable (e.g. jewelry) move it to a safe deposit box and drop that rider.
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Dave,
I'd contact your insurance broker and let your rep guide you to what is appropriate for your home. They recommend coverage and shop it around for the best deal. That said, I'd rather pay a little more to stay with a reputable insurance company than go cheap and deal with unnecessary agita in the event I need to put in a claim. There are some companies I refuse to use on principle resulting from past experiences with them, i.e. Geico.
Robert
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insurance rates differ geographically. where do you live? i'm in metro atlanta. i don't know the exact figures but i know i pay about $700 for $120.000 in home coverage and something like $60,000 personal property. i don't know those other details except to say i probably don't have them all. for the next two years i'm in a high risk category because i was dropped in 2003 for too many claims. that left me with few to none options for coverage so my current plan is about $200 higher than the more full featured plan i used to have. but still, your price tag for the amount of coverage you have wouldn't seem out of range where i live.
do raise your deductibles to $1000. claims lower than that should NOT be submitted to an insurance company at all. if only someone had told me that sooner…
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Dave,
One other thing... Try and combine your home owners with your auto and, if you have one, umbrella. You can get a custom package and possibly a better price for everything.
Robert
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For my rate, it varies based on a few things including distance to a fire hydrant and distance to a fire station.
Bundling, as Mr. Robert M suggested, also gets me a discount.
Mine has gone up some in the past few years, rather rapidly it seems. One thing I'm somewhat lucky with is that my land is worth more than the structure (even though the house has more sq ft than the lot.)
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Wow, I'm overpaying compared to all of you.
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There's a huge variation based on a lot of things. I live in the Puget Sound area, and I just got my renewal notice. I'm now paying $598 for $365,000 worth of coverage on the dwelling and $273,000 of personal property and some scheduled personal property. Also included in that is coverage for an outbuilding and 12 months loss of use. (Plus the usual liability and med stuff.)
However, I decided a couple of years ago to go through the scheduled personal property and pare it way down, and I also increased my deductible to $2,500. For the June 2004 - June 2005 policy period, my premium with a $1,000 deductible and only $313,000 coverage on the house and 235,000 on the personal property was $998 a year.
I suggest you see how far you can kick up the deductible and also make sure you're not scheduling anything but the absolute most valuable items.
I also get some kind of (probably phony) discount each year because I've been with the same company since sometime around 1991, and I also have my auto coverage and an umbrella policy with them.
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Look at consumer reports for home insurance rates. They have both guidance to appropriate coverage and discussions of which insurance companies are the most crooked. I ended up going with Amica Insurance and the rates were much lower than farmers while the coverage was much better. One thing to be aware of is that there are significant issues involved in making a claim (i.e. huge rate increases and cancellation). For that reason it is crazy to have a low deductible because you should only use the insurance for truly catastrophic and expensive events. Personally, I would get the highest possible deductible and suggest that you find out whether you can raise your deductible above $1,000. That still seems far too low to me.
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