After knowing about the home features and home safety criteria that help in lowering homeowners’ Insurance, next come the personal factors that affect homeowners’ Insurance. Let’s open this box of information to know about factors related to personal profile that could lower your homeowners’ Insurance.
Part 3: Factors related to personal profile
- Marital Status – From being single to married, the changes include combining homes or owning a home post marriage. There are insurers who offer flat discount when the change of status is reported. Another reason for the discount is that it is believed married couples file lesser claims than singles. More assets are added to the house and better insurance plans could be selected. Lastly, combining auto with home adds up some more to the discount. Insurers also provide these discounts to open more opportunities for more business.
- Retired – For those retired, the risks associated with home is considered low, thus reduced premium rates and discounts are offered. Another reason could be their availability at home and lesser outdoor activity suggesting well maintained homes with lesser occasions or early spotting of any damage in the house. For AARP members, the discounts are more. When they combine home insurance with auto, the discounts are even better.
- Military background – If on active service, service members are entitled to a military discount. In addition, some providers offer veterans discounts. It could be helpful to refer to the criteria that govern these discounts (https://www.benefits.va.gov/homeloans/purchaseco_eligibility.asp). AARP members could receive additional discounts. There are even special mortgage loans available https://www.hsh.com/va-home-loans.html
- Smoking habits – A fire caused due to mishaps while smoking, for example sleeping while smoking or placing a burning cigarette closer to a substance that can catch fire, is not very common but the damages caused by them is heavy. This cause of fire can easily go unnoticed and spreads, causing severe damage. Not only does it improve health conditions, but it eliminates the little chance of fire that can happen due to cigarettes. As the fire occurrence rate due to smoking is low, there is a low discount offered to non-smokers to save that risk.
- Kids – What changes do having kids bring to the home? Home improvements, adding more child safety precautions to the home, expensive purchases related to your baby adding up to the list of existing home inventory, damages to the house assets caused by the kids are some of those changes that also change your insurances. Home improvement could make you under-covered so it is important to look into your home inventory and estimate additional coverage requirements. Accidental damage coverage helps in covering damages caused by kids as they grow into toddlers.
When your baby is born, you have to make changes to your insurance and when your baby grows up and moves out or going to college, you might plan to move out into a smaller house. If you do so, this creates two insurance tasks – insuring your valuables during the move as well as changing your insurance for your new assets and dwelling.
- Pets & Dog Breeds – Having pets is very common in US households. Equally common is the damages and injuries caused by these pets. For dogs as pets, the coverage depends on its breed, prior losses caused by them, whether it is considered aggressive, or, how likely it would bite. Before deciding on the pet, you may want to check with your insurance provider on their limitations on providing coverage for this new member in your family. Discounts may be available if your dog was taken to training and grooming sessions for improving its behavior, properly vaccinated, if they are kept chained or in cages timely to ensure others’ safety from dog attacks. The policy would be cancelled or altered with increased premium or require a dog bite liability waiver or allowed a discount all depends on the individual insurance provider.
Some companies may allow insurance for dog breeds in aim to offer better services than its competitors or offer lower insurance cost than competitors. After receiving a new quote from your existing insurance provider for adding the pet to your insurance, a little bit of shopping to understand if there can be a better policy choice available which suits your pocket is recommended.
For people owning exotic pets like poisonous spider or snake, wild cats, or even apes, homeowners insurance would not provide any coverage. For these, exotic pet insurance needs to be bought separately.
Apart from reviewing your home features, security arrangements and your personal profile, there are some factors that depend on your deeper diving into your situation and your insurance conditions to prepare for further cost saving on your homeowners’ insurance if it could be applied by your insurance provider. By analyzing your insurance per all of these factors, you will have the peace of mind that your homework is thorough and you are being fairly priced based on all the favorable factors that could help you save. You are one step away from achieving all this, wait for the last part of the guide to lower your homeowners insurance which is categorized as ‘Other important factors to lower the insurance cost’ coming next in “A comprehensive guide to factors that lower your homeowners’ insurance premium (contd) – Part 4.”
