5 Ways to Reduce The Impact of Rising Home Insurance Premiums

Insurance premiums are on the rise.  Here are the main reasons WHY home insurance premiums are increasing, as well as some recommendations on how you can minimize the impact to your pocket book!

Top reasons for rising home insurance premiums:

• Inflation of labor and material costs from year to year;
• Lower investment income for the Insurance Companies;
• Increase in claim costs, including water damage and hailstorm claims in recent years.

As a reminder, Insurance is the losses of a few spread among the many.  Therefore, the high amount of claim payouts in the last few years affects all of us even if we have not put a claim through ourselves.

Insurance Company reactions:

• Automatic increase in limits of insurance coverage each year;
• Raising awareness on water loss prevention;
• Increasing base deductibles to reduce the amount of smaller claims being put through;
• Giving the option of excluding wind/hail damage coverage;
• Having a higher deductible on wind/hail claims;
• Increases in property insurance premiums.

Ways we can help you reduce the impact of rising home insurance premiums:

1. Review your dwelling coverage by running an updated Replacement Cost calculation to ensure that you are insured for the correct limit (note: in some cases, this may warrant an increase in the limit of coverage required. If the replacement cost calculated is less than your current limit, the dwelling amount can be reduced thus saving premium).
2. Review updates that have been done to your home, including to the roof, siding, heating, plumbing and electrical.
3. Review the benefits and savings of increasing your deductible.
4. Review the discounts you are eligible for and suggest additional ones that could apply (ie. occupational, combining your home and auto, etc.).
5. Compare your existing policy with the coverage and rates available through our other markets.

Hopefully you have found this information helpful!

As always, if you have any questions or if you would like to do a full review of your home insurance policy, one of our friendly and knowledgeable Brokers would be more than happy to assist you!

Thank you,

The Costen Insurance Team