How to Lower Home Insurance Payments

"I'm Romie Brown. On behalf of Expert Village, I'm here to discuss with you tips and tidbits on how to buy homeowner's insurance. In this clip, we're going to talk about discounts. How to lower your homeowner's premium. One of the things we talked about in earlier clips was about coverage?s, proper coverage?s. Paying, how you pay: annually, semi-annually and so on and so forth. Now let's talk about lowering that bill. One of the things you can do with the insurance company is multi-policies. If you have homeowner's, life insurance, other policies, most companies will actually give you a percentage discount on your homeowner's policy. Smoke detectors, fire extinguishers, burglar alarms - especially - give big discounts. If you can show that you're protecting that house against sudden perils, then insurance companies are compelled to give you a discount in appreciation of you trying to stop what's called loss litigation, prevent loss from happening. One of the things, also, is utilities updated: electrical, plumbing, heating and wiring. Those things, as houses get older, those things become outdated. When they become outdated, sometimes they become worn. And those things end up equaling losses: fires and so on and so forth. So it's important that if you're looking at homes, and you find a home that had utilities updated within the last ten years, make sure you alert your insurance agent because that does give you a significant discount as well. Another thing to look for is look for any, quote-unquote "prior losses". If that house has not had any prior losses, and you yourself, the proposed insured, has not had any prior losses, then you get what's called claim-free discounts. Those things, you add all those things up, and you can actually lower your premiums by hundreds of dollars. And I tell you, as an insurance agent, I love seeing that because it gives me an opportunity to actually give you, sell to you other products for the same price you would have bought a homeowner's policy if you didn't have those discounts. So it's a win-win situation for the insurance agent and for the client."