Insurances, savings tips
Never, never just accept a renewal quote from your existing provider on your Home and Car Insurance policies. After mortgages, this is the best area to limit your spending by finding other providers. According to the Daily Mail, the average quote of £629 for car insurance falls to £415 if you shop around, while home and contents insurance tumbles from £385 to £250. The internet makes it incredibly simple to find quotes, and if you don’t spend at least one lunch hour a year finding a better deal then you obviously have money to burn.
1. Reclaim Loan protection insurance
Pricey and poorly sold, payment protection insurance is one of the most profitable products created by the finance industry. It can add £3,000 to the cost of a £7,500 Personal loan. Many people who were sold ppi could’t claim on it against it these people are able to claim their ppi back.
Many companies will attempt to claim the money back, but you will pay a 25% premium on the monies awarded. Instead, call the FOS they are helping 4 out of 5 people missold . Helpfully, it offers a factsheet on how to make a complaint about PPI which you can find at financialombudsman.org.uk
2. Cancel your mobile phone insurance
Naive youngsters are strongly pressured in phone shops into spending between £50 and £90 a year on this insurance. But the benefits are minimal: most won’t cover you for the only major risk, airtime abuse (if the phone is used to ring abroad), and you can claim for a lost phone on you contents cover.
Just ring your bank, stop the direct debit and job done!.
3. Rethink your life insurance
Life insurance is not for life. Just because the life cover was sold to you by your mortgage broker doesn’t mean you have to stick with that provider for the life of the remortgage. the policy can be canceled at any time and find a better deal. With the avergae age of death improving (ie. fewer people dying), the insurers have been reducing premiums for many years.
If you are in a job at a big employer, it is likely to offer “death in service” benefit worth as much as three times your yearly salary, and often more. Do you really need all that life insurance cover on top as well?
4. Don’t pay for travel insurance you don’t need
Step 1 Obtain a European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) from ehic.org.uk or at your local Post Office. This has replaced the old E111 forms and gives you reducedcost or free medical treatment in EU countries and Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. You may even obtain treatment faster, as you won’t have to rely on a hospital waiting to receive authorisation to treat you from an insurer.
Step 2 Check your home insurance policy. most cover your belongings ouside your house.
Step 3 Check your medical insurance policy, if you have one. These requently pay treatment costs incurred abroad. For most holidaymakers, who travel to southern Europe once a year, the only real benefit that travel cover brings is cover in the event of a cancellation. Can you justify paying the premiums?.
You mustn’t travel outside the EU with out travel insurance cover If you go away more than once a year it is best to take a annual policy though again don’t pay for cover you don’t need. For example, cover for winter sports.