With the high price of real estate in The Big Peach today, you’ll want to explore every route to savings. That includes carefully considering what you’ll pay for your Atlanta home insurance.
While it’s not the largest part of your monthly house payment, every dollar you can shave from the bill can go toward maintaining or renovating your residence and keeping your home value high.
Here are five quick and easy ways to find and keep the most affordable home insurance in Atlanta, with no sacrifice on the quality of your coverage.
1. Bundle Your Coverage
You’ve probably already struck up at least one relationship with an insurance company and agent. You might have auto, life, or renters insurance. Maybe all three. If you’re self-employed you probably also have one or more lines of business insurance.
Count on the fact that one or more of those insurers would love to increase your level of business. After all, you pay your premiums on time, and your claims activity is not excessive. Your good practices earn rate discounts to attract interest in another line of coverage.
It’s called bundling when you add another insurance product from the same company. Find out if your auto insurer, for instance, also offers homeowners insurance in Atlanta. Or just pick up the phone, call your agent, and ask the question. Adding to an existing relationship with an insurer can result in significant savings over time.
2. Raise Your Deductible
Most forms of insurance carry deductibles. That’s the amount you’ll pay for a covered loss before your insurer assumes responsibility for the rest. The higher the deductible, the lower your premiums.
Makes sense, right? If you save your insurer by taking on a bigger chunk of the claim cost, they should (and will) charge you less for your coverage.
Ask your insurer to crunch the numbers. See what you’ll pay monthly for a $1,000 deductible as opposed to paying $2,500 out of pocket. You might be shocked at how much you can save by assuming a higher deductible.
Just keep in mind that you’ll pay more for a covered loss with a higher deductible in exchange for paying less monthly.
3. Safety-Proof Your Home
This is another conversation to be held with your Atlanta home insurance agent, but most companies offer discounts when homeowners take certain actions aimed at reducing the risk of high claims.
For instance, show that you’ve installed smoke and burglar alarms and you might pay less. Some of today’s smart technology, such as outdoor lighting, surveillance cameras, and motion detectors, might also earn rate discounts.
As a bonus, taking these cost-effective steps will make you and your family feel more secure when at home.
4. Don’t Chase Small Claims
Nothing will make your premiums go up faster than expensive and extensive claims action. That’s costly to an insurer, so they pass that cost along to you.
Consider the wisdom of turning in a hail damage claim of $3,000 when you have a $2,500 deductible. Is the check for $500 worth the risk of your insurance rates escalating due to the claim?
It works the same way in reverse. A client without lengthy or costly claims is worth more to an insurer. You might actually find your premiums decreasing if you prove to be a valuable client over time.
5. Shop for Coverage
Calling up the one and only homeowners insurance agent you know in Atlanta that only sells for one carrier may not give you the best deal. Do you have any idea what the quote you’re given even means when you have no point of comparison? Is it a good deal or bad? How would you know?
Let an independent homeowners insurance agent go coverage shopping for you. Agents working for a single insurance carrier can only offer you coverage from that source, but independent agents represent multiple carriers. That means they can compare rates market-wide to bring you multiple options and, ultimately, the most affordable home insurance in Atlanta.