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It is always nice when you are able to pay less for homeowner insurance and get the same cover or more. Below are ten handy tips that you can carry out to get cheaper homeowner insurance premiums. 1. Increase your voluntary excess Your insurance excess is the amount of money you agree to pay on a claim before the insurer pays the remainder. For example, if you had a 200 pound excess and a £500 claim you would pay £200 and the insurance company would pay 300 pounds. If you choose to increase your excess, you will be charged a lower premium. You can make substantial savings by doing this. When you are comparing policies, try changing the excess amount and see how much you can save. 2. Fit smoke alarms Fire alarms are quite cheap, especially when compared to the cost of a home or the loss of a life. Most home fires are caused by smoking or cooking. Never leave your cooking unattended, don't leave matches or lighters laying around and don't smoke in bed. Be aware if you have small children that they love to play with all things new and exciting. They may turn on the cooker, light paper or cover lamps. All of these things may cause a fire in your home. 3. Install new locks If you have just moved into a new home, you don’t know who may still have a key. The cost of changing your locks is much less than having all of your worldly possessions stolen from from your home. Ensure you install good quality locks - preferably 5-lever mortise locks. 4. Have security lighting installed Burglars prefer to work under the cover of darkness and don’t like to be in the spotlight. Use movement sensors with your lighting to surprise unwelcome visitors and keep them at bay. A blast of light will also raise attention with yourself or neighbours in the middle of the night. 5. Install time switches on internal lights Your home is most at risk to burgulary when you are not there. Lights that are activated at a particular time will give outsiders the impression that you are at home when you are not. You can stagger the intervals the lights are switched on and off in different rooms make it appear like you are moving about your home. 6. Have an alarm system installed Check with your insurer if they have a preferred supplier of home alarm systems. By having a professionally installed alarm system can sometimes reduce premiums by over 5 %. That is a great saving, plus it will give you peace of mind that your home is safe. 7. Don't leave your keys under the mat This will be the first place a burglar will look. If you need to hide your house keys, put a little thought into somewhere a burglar would never think of looking. Also don't leave your keys on a hook close to the front door where a burglar may be able to hook the keys with a wire through the front letter box. 8. Insulate your external pipes Pipes can freeze easily in the great British winter. By lagging (wrapping insulation around the pipe) your external pipes will reduce the chance of them freezing. If your pipes do freeze you can easily get leaks in cracked pipes or burn out pump motors as the water will not pass through the pipe. 9. Regularly check you house and property for subsidence. Subsidence is usually covered by your home buildings insurance. It is important to detect movement as soon as possible to minimise the damage to you house. Look for unevenness in walls and floors and cracks in walls. 10. Only claim if you have to The less number of claims you make, the higher your no claims discount will be. If a minor incident happens, consider carefully before claiming the item on your insurance. If you do make a claim and loose your no claims discount, will this cost you more in the long run? In order to save money on your insurance you need to compare insurance providers. Ideally you should do this once a year to make sure you are always getting the best price.
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