If you’re having financial difficulties,
you may be looking to cut your annual spending where you can in order to make
life easier. One place that you should never skimp though is on keeping those
essential insurance policies in place.
Now, although not every insurance policy is
essential, there are certain ones that you can’t do without. In fact if you own
a home and have a mortgage that is still outstanding, you are legally obliged
to have buildings insurance for it. Similarly, if you own a car, it’s a legal
requirement to have motor insurance, unless you have a SORN declaration and you
don’t drive it. If you don’t drive your car, and keep it in your driveway, you still need to get insurance unless you
have a valid Statutory Off Road Notice for it.
Other insurance policies may not be legal
requirements, and this includes health insurance, pet insurance, travel insurance
and home contents insurance. You need to weigh up your potential risk of not
having these kinds of cover and having to pay out for things like vets bills
and replacing contents from your home without insurance against the annual cost
of such insurance policies.
If you want to keep certain insurance
policies going, but reduce the costs associated with them, then you could look
at ways of reducing the premiums. For example, when you are getting buildings insurance
quotes, ask if your insurer will offer a discount for a combined
buildings and contents policy. When you’re getting home and
contents insurance quotes, ask the insurer if they offer further
discounts for multi-policy holders – for example, if you have your motor
insurance with them as well, will this increase your discount?
Shopping around for better prices on
insurance isn’t much fun, but a little effort and time on your part could save
you hundreds over the course of a year.
