Save on Your Insurance by Asking

asking companies if there is a way you can save money, and it turns out that insurance companies are fair game. Save money on your insurance policies by simply asking. Photo by foundphotoslj.

At the financial blog FiveCentNickel, they've put together a guide to saving money on your car insurance which includes tips like increasing your deductible and dropping unnecessary coverage—both tips will work for home insurance too. The easiest tip by far though is simply asking what you can do to save:

You might qualify for discounts for being accident-free, renewing your policy, driving relatively few miles each year, taking a defensive driving course, etc. Be sure to talk to your agent and get what you have coming to you.

The last time I talked to my home insurance agent, for example, I asked her if there was any discounts I was unaware of. She checked my policy and said the only discount available that I wasn't already taking advantage of was the discount for having a home alarm system. The discount for having a monitored alarm was a whopping $400 a year, more than the actual cost of having a monitored alarm system. Simply by asking I essentially got a "free" monitored home alarm with no change in my yearly expenses.