How To Get Cheap House Insurance

House insurance covers four basic categories:

1. House structure coverage - pays to to repair of rebuild your home when it's damaged or destroyed by fire, smoke, vandalism, burst water pipes, or acts of nature. Damage from earthquakes, hurricanes, and floods are not covered by standard policies, but separate insurance to cover these disasters can be purchased if needed.

2. Personal possessions coverage - pays to replace your personal possessions like clothing, furniture, electronics, appiliances, etc., when they're damaged or destroyed by fire, smoke, vandalism, burst water pipes, or acts of nature.

3. Personal liability coverage - pays for medical bills, property damage expenses, and legal fees if someone hurts himself, or his property is damaged, and you're held liable.

4. Off-premises living coverage - pays for your living expenses while your residence is being repaired or renovated.

Cheap House Insurance

Here are the biggest money-savers when it comes to getting cheap house insurance:

Increase Your Deductible

Your deductible is the amount of money you pay toward a claim before your insurance company will pay. Increasing your deductible to an amount you can afford can save you 15% to 35% on your yearly premium.

Install Safety and Security Devices

Installing safety and security devices such as burglar alarms, fire alarms, smoke detectors, dead-bolt locks, window locks, fire extinguishers, and sprinkler systems can save you up to 20% on your insurance costs.

Consolidate Your Insurance

You can save up to 15% on your insurance premium with many insurance companies if you purchase both you house insurance and your auto insurance through them.

Shop Around

Because insurance premiums can vary by hundreds, even thousands of dollars between insurance companies, comparison shopping is the best way to save money on house insurance. The easiest way to comparison shop is to visit an insurance comparison website to get rates from different insurers.

A few comparison websites even offer a feature that allows you to talk with an insurance expert to get answers to your insurance questions. (See link below.)

Visit http://www.LowerRateQuotes.com/homeowners-insurance.html or click on the following link to get cheap house insurance quotes from top-rated insurance companies and see how much you can save. You can get more insurance tips in their Articles section.

The author, Brian Stevens, is a former insurance agent and financial consultant who has written a number of articles on getting cheap house insurance.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Brian_Stevens

Introduction to Home Insurance

You purchased a house: it has cost you years of savings, you've been wishing to buy that fantastic house for a long time.

Being the owner of your own house is fantastic, it doesn't matter how big it is.

Your real estate investment is such a big value and you must protect it: homeowners insurance is what you need.

Homeowners insurance covers your house from natural disasters, fire, theft and more. You can obviously include in the coverage external structures surrounding your house such as a garage or a gazebo.

There are several levels of coverage like any other kind of insurance: the higher you want your amount of coverage to be, the higher your premium will be.

Indicatively the starting amount of coverage you're looking for is the cost of rebuilding or repairing it in case of total destruction.

You should make sure that the insurance company increases the insured value accordingly with the value of you house every year, or at least remember to ask them to adjust this value when renewing the policy.

If you want to include in the policy high value items in your house such as a painting, a piano or a TV you'll have to make an inventory of these things and add their value to the total insured value.

Home insurance is not expensive if compared to the dramatic situation you would face if you hadn't a home insurance coverage.

There are several things that influence the cost: it varies depending on the presence of a fire detection system, the distance from a fire station and other factors.

Stipulating a homeowners insurance is highly recommended to protect your real estate investment.

Get a homeowners insurance quote online and save!

John Burford owns the popular Home Insurance Guides, a well known Home Insurance website.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=John_Burford

Cheap Vacant House Insurance - Where to Get It

Do you have a vacant house that you need insured? Want to get cheap vacant house insurance with a top-rated company? Read on ...

Vacant House Insurance Tips

If you own a home that's vacant you want to protect it from vandals, burglars, fire, and acts of nature. Here are some tips on how to protect your vacant house:

* Make sure you secure all doors and windows with deadbolts and window locks.

* Install a burglar alarm. The best alarms use motion sensors and glass-breakage detectors and are linked to a local security service.

* Give you house a lived-in look. Install intermittent light timers, have a neighbor pick up your mail, and have someone shovel your driveway after a snowfall.

* Ask a neighbor or hire someone to periodically check the outside and inside of your home for damage, especially after a storm.

Getting Cheap Vacant House Insurance

Vacant house insurance is generally more expensive than regular homeowners insurance because there's no one living in the house to watch and protect it. However, if your house is vacant for only a short period of time, or if you hire a caretaker to look after it, your insurance rate will be less.

Other ways to save money are:

* Purchase your vacant house insurance and your car insurance from the same company. This can save you up to 30% on your insurance premium.

* Raise your deductible to an amount you can afford. Raising your deductible from $500 to $1,000 can save you 15% to 25%.

* Install safety and security features like dead-bolt locks, window locks, smoke detectors, fire alarms, and sprinkler systems. This can save you 5% to 20%.

* Compare insurance rates with at least three different companies. This is the biggest money-saver of all, as insurance rates can vary by as much as $1,000 or more from one company to another.

Visit http://www.LowerRateQuotes.com/homeowners-insurance.html or click on the following link to get vacant house insurance quotes from top homeowners insurance companies and see how much you can save. You can get more insurance tips in their Articles section.

The author, Brian Stevens, is a former insurance agent and financial consultant who has written extensively on vacant house insurance.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Brian_Stevens