Don’t just accept you new quote from your existing insurance on your Home and Car insurance cover. After mortgages, this is the most effective area to limit your spending by requesting alternative quotes. According to the Daily Mail, On average you will save £214 by shopping around, while buildings and contents insurance tumbles from £385 to £250. Why not get some quotes from the internet, and if you don’t spend at least one lunch hour a year finding a better deal then saving money is not important.
1. Reclaim Loan protection insurance
Overpriced and oversold, payment protection insurance is one of the most profitable types of insurance formed by the finance industry. It can add £3,000 to the cost of a £7,500 Personal loan. Many people who were sold ppi could’t claim on it against it these people are able to claim their ppi back.
Many companies will attempt to claim the money back, but you will pay a 25% premium on the monies awarded. Instead, call the FOS on average they are helping 80% of those 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
It is common for people to be are strongly pressured in phone shops into spending between £60 and £70 a year on this insurance. Airtime abuse is not covered which is the greatest risk (if the phone is used to ring abroad), and if your phone is lost your home and contents should coiver it.
Cancel your direct debit with the bank and the insurance will lapse.
3. Rethink your life insurance
You don’t have to keep you life insurance policy for the whole of the policies term. Just because the life assurance was sold to you with your mortgage you don’t need to to stick with that provider for the life of the home loan. You have the option to cancel at any time and find a better deal. With the avergae age of death improving (ie. fewer people dying), life insurance companies have been cutting rates for more than a decade.
If you are in a job at a big employer, it is likely to offer “death in service” benefit worth at least three times your yearly salary, and often a lot 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 insurance policy, if you have one. These usually pay treatment costs incurred abroad. If traveling to Europe, the only real benefit that travel insurance brings is cancellation cover. Is that worth the premiums.
You mustn’t travel outside the EU with out travel insurance cover Annual policies are always besty if you intend to travel more than opnce a year though again don’t pay for cover you don’t need. For example, f you don’t ski or snowboard, you don’t need winter sports cover.