Save money on your insurance

Never, never just accept a renewal quote from your insurance company on your Car insurance and home insurance. After mortgages, this is the best area to save money by seeking alternative quotes. According to the Daily Mail, the average quote of £629 for car insurance falls to £415 if you shop around, while your home insurance premium tumbles from £385 to £250. It is so easy to get quotes on the internet, and if you don’t spend at least one lunch hour a year finding a better deal then I wish I had as much money as you!.

1. Investigate your Loan protection insurance
Too expensive and agressively sold, payment protection insurance is one of the most profitable types of insurance created by the finance industry. It can add £3,000 to the cost of a £7,500 unsecured loan. A vast proportion of people who were sold PPI are unable to claim against it This money is now eligible to be claimed back.

Lots of claims companies advertise on daytime television, promising to obtain you a refund but they will take 25% of whatever you win. Instead, call the FOS they are helping 4 out of 5 people missold . Helpfully, it offers a factsheet on how to make a complaint about PPI which you can find at financialombudsman.org.uk

2. Cancel your mobile phone insurance
Naive youngsters are strongly pressured in phone shops into spending between £60 and £70 a year on this insurance. But the benefits are minimal: most won’t cover you for the only major risk, airtime abuse (if the phone is used to ring abroad), and if your phone is lost your home and contents should coiver it.

Just ring your bank, stop the direct debit and job done!.

3. Rethink your life insurance
Life insurance is not for life. Just because the term insurance was sold to you when you took out a mortgage doesn’t mean you have to stick with that provider for the life of the remortgage. You have the option to cancel at any time to get a cheaper quote. With the human lifetime improving (ie. fewer people dying), life insurance companies have been cutting rates for many years.

If you are in a job at a big employer, it is likely to offer “death in service” benefit worth as much as three times your annual salary, and often more. Do you really need all that life cover on top as well?

4. Don’t pay for travel insurance you don’t need
Step 1 An EHIC card provides free or reduced cost treatment in EU countries

Step 2 Check your home insurance policy. Many have clauses which already cover personal belongings (ie. your suitcase) outside the home.

Step 3 Check your medical cover policy, if you have one. These requently cover the costs of treatment incurred abroad. when you are only travelling to Europe, the only real benefit that travel insurance brings is cancellation cover. Ask yourself if that is really worth premiums that are often pounds 100 or more for a family.

If traveling outside the EU you must have travel isnurance If you go away more than once a year it is best to take a annual policy don’t pay for what you don’t need. For example, if you don’t ski or snowboard, you don’t need cover for winter sports.