Home Insurance is one of the most important types of insurance you can buy. Realistically, your house is your biggest and most valuable asset. While home insurance isn’t legally required, we do strongly recommend making sure you take out a home insurance policy! Whether it’s time to take out a new policy or to renew your existing one, we’ve come up with three quick ways that might save you money on your home insurance premium.
Be careful when you’re estimating the value of your house. Your home insurance premium needs to cover three main aspects:
1. The building/structure
Your home insurance premium needs to cover the structure of your home itself including permanent fixtures and fittings, outbuildings, garages, fences, conservatories, etc.
2. Household contents
Contents insurance is a big one. You may be tempted to insure everything in your home, but your best bet is to go from room-to-room and catalogue everything you’d take with you if you were to move house. These are the contents that are most valuable to you and so should be covered in your home insurance policy. Generally, contents cover also insures any items in your shed/garage.
3. Extra cover
If you’ve got a high-value item like your engagement ring that you want to insure, you’ll need optional risk cover or item cover.
When your house (the structure) is being valued for home insurance, the sum is based on the current rebuild cost. Your house may be worth more or less than when you first built or bought it.
Whether you’re looking into getting your home insurance policy renewed or you want to change policy, make sure you’ve valued your contents correctly. Don’t overvalue! Also make sure you’ve got an accurate rebuild cost too. Overestimating the value of your house or not getting a proper rebuild value could see you paying more into your home insurance premium than you need to.
Make sure your home is as safe as possible
The best way to keep your home insurance premium costs down is by making your home as safe as possible and safe-guarding against having to make any claims. Install a security system. Always lock doors and windows when you leave the house. Buy a fire extinguisher. Install smoke alarms. Use common sense, essentially!
Getting your wiring checked every five years or so by an electrical contractor will ensure that your house is safer too, as faulty wiring can be the cause of many accidental house fires.
It’s also a good rule of thumb to contact your home insurance provider whenever you make any changes to your house. We’re not talking about letting them know if you’re adding a new lick of paint, but if you call in contractors to improve security and safety measures in your home, you should give your home insurance provider a call. Making your house as safe as possible may help towards lowering the cost of your current home insurance premium.
It’s always important to thoroughly read your policy, and to know exactly what you’re getting and at what price.
With Cornmarket Home Insurance, you can rest assured that you are getting a great level of cover, at a very competitive price! For more information, click here or call us on (01) 420 0996.