Why Do A Home and Contents Insurance Comparison
Every Year?

When you receive your renewal notice and complete your home and contents insurance comparison from year to year, do you automatically sign the form and send it back to your insurance company. You already know what your home insurance premium is so why would you even bother looking over your policy to compare your insurance coverage.  Here are 4 reasons why that might be a big mistake:

Did you go on a shopping spree and buy a new television or oven last year?  If so then the price of your new purchase will not be included in this year’s renewal notice that you just received from your insurance company.  Also, did you sell anything of value last year? Did you tell your insurance company that you sold it? If not, then you are paying a higher premium than you need to be for your home insurance policy because you don’t own the item that the insurance company is covering.  Just think about it, you'll be paying too much insurance premiums on things you don't even own.

You are insuring your personal property when you have a home and contents insurance policy.  This is the replacement cost of buying it new again.  Also remember that the cost of labor and materials should be included completing your home contents insurance comparison.

Ask yourself this question: Will replacing my furniture or pictures cost me more this year than it did last year?  If you don’t review, compare and change your insurance policy then the cost of replacing these items will not cost you more but you won’t receive any more than what you said was the cost of replacing these items.  This applies to the cost labor for your home builder and his materials, if he’s working on your home such as in our case we have had to replace the roof because of a spring hailstorm.

Similar to the above, when completing your home and contents insurance comparison you need to be asking yourself whether or not the value of your home stayed the same this year as it was last year?  Ask yourself this question because the value seems to always change either up or down.  For many years it was always going up but that does not seem to be the case now days.

When it comes to taking out home contents insurance it is essential that you don’t underestimate or overestimate the value of your possessions.  If you were to suffer the misfortune of losing all your contents in say a fire and have underestimated the contents then of course you will lose out.  Make sure you tell your insurance company representative about anything that is valuable just in case you might need the extra insurance coverage and it may not be in your standard policy.

However, your insurance premium will be much higher than it needs to be if you have overestimated the value of your possessions.

Finally when taking out a home and contents insurance policy do make sure that you are aware of your exclusions.  Make sure you know what is covered and what is not covered in your insurance policy.

If you have made changes to your home over the last year then that could mean that your home is safer today than it was last year?  For example, did you add a security system or surveillance system?  You have a very likely chance your premium will be lowered if you did.  An insurance company considers the security of your home as a major component when assessing your premium rate. How about the rate of crime in your neighborhood?  Are you safer?  If so, you may also want to check and see if this has gone up or down also.

Remember that nothing stays the same even though we might want it too.  Always do a home and contents insurance comparison and review your home and buildings insurance renewal notices to make sure you don’t have any changes.  Review and compare your insurance policy very carefully every year and make sure that you show, as accurately as possible, the value of your prized items and this will save you some money in the long run.  Also remember to do a home insurance comparison of your insurance company with a rating agency such Weiss Ratings each year.

Home and Contents Insurance Comparison

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Homeowners Insurance Policy Next Year?