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Buy Homeowners Insurance:Owning a home can be a great accomplish in your life, but keep in mind that it will cost quite a bit to insure it each year. Buying homeowners insurance is a pretty easy process, but it will take a few minutes of your time to get the details of your home in order and either call a local agent or go online and get a FREE homeowners insurance quote over the Internet. I have owned my current home for just over 8 years now and I've used 3 different homeowner insurance companies in that time. I originally signed up with a Nationwide homeowners insurance policy back in 2001 and eventually switched over to Allstate after a few years of consistently raised rates. Just recently I made the big change from Allstate to Progressive and I am finally saving a bit on my yearly premium. When comparing homeowners insurance costs and coverages, please understand that prices will vary a bit when you take into consideration things like property and liability coverages and the deductible that is on your policy.
How Much is Homeowners Insurance - Cost to Insure House:Just how much is homeowners insurance? We are going to say it varies from about $400 to $1500 year depending on several factors. Insurance is just a statistical analysis with lots of variables. You need to consider the state you live in (remember we said Florida residents pay more due to potential hurricane damages), the year your house was built, how many stories there are, are the exterior walls made of brick, wood, stucco, do you have an attached garage (what's the capacity), is there a basement (water damage is big with this one), home security system (alarms lower your rate), roof type (asphalt, shingles, shake, metal), square footage of house, # of bedrooms and full baths, fireplaces, and decks. You can get homeowners insurance discounts for things like deadbolts, smoke alarms, fire extinguishers, being near a fire hydrant and fire station. We recommend using a website like Insureme.com to get a homeowners insurance estimate on the Internet. It takes about 5 minutes of your time and well worth the effort. Calling a local Allstate or Farmers agent is also quite simple and they can get you a quote the same day after taking your details. I used the Progressive.com website to get my current homeowners insurance policy and after I signed up online they sent a guy out in person to verify the square footage, house type, etc. before they finalized the contract with me. Still, the process was easy and I was able to save money.
Homeowners Insurance Claim:Submitting a claim with a homeowners insurance company is time consuming and certainly not worth doing unless the damage far outweighs your deductible. I recently had some water damage to my front door (dry rot and leaking) that I got an estimate on to fix and it was around $2400. My deductible was only $500 so I made the decision to file a homeowners insurance claim and get it fixed properly. The downside was that the estimate was incorrect and the total bill was more like $1300. I paid the first $500 and the insurance company did cover the rest. The end result was an increase in my yearly premium of about $200/year so eventually they will get that money back in higher costs to me. I can switch to another company but they will want to know about any claims I've submitted in recent years and I will have to tell them. Like car insurance, it does you no good to nickel and dime your home insurance company. Filing the claim took about 6 weeks to get it approved and then another 2 months total to get a contractor to do the work and have it completely done. It was a hassle no matter how you look at it, but having an insurance company that works with you is important. In our area there were a few homes with mudslide damage and the homes were too dangerous to live in and the insurance companies took months to determine what caused the mudslides and the homeowners were out of luck until the final decision.
Tips on Lowering Your Homeowners Insurance Costs:Do you want to lower your homeowners insurance costs? It's totally possible to shed $100's of your yearly premiums if you do just a few things. The biggest thing to do is shop for homeowners insurance from multiple sources. You'd be surprised how one companies rates differ from another. I know many people who have been with homeowner insurance companies like Allstate for years and they think their loyalty gives them better rates. That is so far from the truth, don't take for granite what your agent says, check around and see what competitive market rates are. A surefire way to lower your rates is to increase your deductible from $500 to $1000 - you may save almost 25% on your premium. Try to get your auto and home policies together to save on premiums - many insurance companies will give you at 15% or higher discount. Look into ways that will make your home more "disaster resistant" - add storm shutters, get a better roof, retrofit to withstand earthquakes, etc. Add things like smoke detectors, burglar alarms, and things as basic as dead bolt locks. Cancel or reduce your floater - extra coverage on things not normally covered.
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