I just finished an insurance review for a family who was looking for ways to save on their insurance premium. After spending some time with them on the phone and visiting their home it was pretty clear to me that they were better off not switching insurance companies and I recommended that they stay with their same agent and their same insurance company for now.
But I did see ways in which they could improve the quality of their insurance and reduce their premium at the same time. So I recommended they go back to their current agent and have the following things done:
1. Raise the home insurance policy deductible. This family carried only a $500 deductible and they'd save about $150/yr just by increasing the deductible to $1,000.
2. Increase the home insurance liability limit from $100,000 to $500,000. This would cost them about $25/yr.
3. Reduce their coverage for "Other Structures" because they didn't have any on their property. This would save them about $100/yr.
4. Increase their auto insurance liability limit from $250,000 to $500,000. This was going to increase premium by about $250/yr.
5. Increase their auto insurance deductibles from $100 to $1,000. This was going to save them about $375/yr.
In the end, they'll have much better coverage for the more important things, and they'll save $350/yr by getting rid of insurance on the things they either don't need or could cover themselves!
It is important that not everyone consider this a recipe for their own insurance coverage because every family is different and not one plan can fit all people. We only recommended this to this particular family because we worked to understand their situation and help them customize their own insurance portfolio to match.
So while we don't have this family as a client of ours (yet), we feel that their insurance is better, they can worry less, and they'll now have $350 that they can put to better, and happier, use!
