Tough Economy – 5.5 Ways to Save money on your Insurance Premiums

With the national unemployment rate projected to reach 8% there are many people asking themselves tough questions about how they can cut corners and save money. Here are 5.5 things you can do to reduce your insurance premiums without exposing yourselves to undo risk.

1. Change the Usage of your vehicle

If you or your spouse have been laid off and are currently looking for employment – you are no longer commuting daily to work. Call your insurance agent and let them know of this change – they should be able to modify your policy from a “daily commuter” to a “pleasure” use – this will lower your premiums.

2. Change Your Deductibles

A quick way to save money in premium is to raise your deductibles. The largest savings can be achieved by raising your collision deductible on your auto policy – this coverage is one of the most expensive parts of your auto insurance premium. But you can also see additional savings by raising your comprehensive deductible on your auto insurance and the deductible on your homeowners policy. Once your economic position gets better you can always adjust the deductibles back to a level you feel more comfortable with.

3. Combine Policies

If you have your auto and home policies with different insurance companies, it may save you money to move them all to the same company.  Most of the carriers provide a substantial discount when they insure both your auto and home.  So to take advantage of that discount is may make sense to move all your policies to one carrier.

4. Verify your Discounts

Many times all eligible discounts are not on the policies – especially if you’ve been with a carrier for a while (usually 3 or more years).  This occurs most, if you had some chargeable tickets or accidents that caused discounts to drop because you no longer qualified for “preferred” rates.  Most of the major carriers only count tickets and chargeable accidents for a 3 year period – so if a ticket or accident occurred over 3 years ago you may now qualify to have those “preferred” rates once again.  Also here are some other popular discounts (may very by carrier) that you want to check to see if they are on your policies – Anti lock brake, Alarm Systems (both for your car and home) or Recovery Systems.  If you have youthful drivers – check to be sure that the following discounts are still on your policies (if applicable) Good Student discount, Driver Safety discount.  These are just a few of the many discounts that may or may not be on your policies at this time.

5. Your Credit Counts

All the major insurance carriers determine what rates you’re even eligible for by using a “risk rating” system.  These system are directly connected to your credit history.  Some carriers strictly use your credit score, some run your credit through a proprietary model, but in either case your credit can make a impact on your the rates.  So if you think your credit has improved over the past several months or years, you may want to see if you insurance carrier has updated their “risk rating” because it can save you money on your rates.

5.5 Contact your Agent

As I mentioned in my previous posting – the one thing that can consistently provide you with the most coverage for the least amount of money is a GOOD agent.  If you have not heard from your agent in a while, and have not done a review of your policies – I encourage you to call your agent and review these 5.5 things with them and see if you can save money without having to cut coverages.

In these tough economic times it only makes sense to take a hard look at every area of your monthly budget to see if there are areas that can be trimmed.  If you take the 5.5 simple things I’ve listed above I assure you there will be money you can save.

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