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People are always looking for ways to save money on their insurance. Whether it is auto insurance, home insurance, or even travel insurance; getting the best possible price is important. Who wants to pay more for insurance if they don’t have to, right? Well, the truth is that there are lots of people that are overpaying for both home and auto insurance for one simple reason.
What is it? It is surprising how many people don’t combine their insurance policies into one plan with one insurer. Doing this will qualify them for a discount with almost any insurance company.
But, if you have your home and auto policies with separate companies, then you need to decide which company is the best option. Obviously, price will be the major determining factor, but you also have to weigh other factors such as other potential discounts, customer service, and overall reputation of the insurance company.
How much of a cost savings?
Combing your policies with one insurance company will save you money. But, everyone always wants to know how much. While the total amount of saves will vary from insurer to insurer and be dependent on things like your driving history and where you live, most people experience approximately a 15% savings on each policy.
That is a considerable amount of savings for the minimal amount of work that is required to switch over to one company. And, if you use a broker, it will take even less work on your part.
The benefits of combining home and auto insurance
Cost savings is not the only benefit of combining your plans. There are also a number of less thought of benefits to only having one insurance company to deal with. They include:
- One payment: One of the most convenient things about combining your policy is that you will only have to make one payment for both forms of insurance. That means one monthly payment coming out of your account on the same day each month, which is much easier to track from a finance perspective.
- One contract: Combining policies makes things easier for you in the sense that you only have to sign one contract, with one insurance company. This will simplify things as you will only have to read through and review one contract.
- One renewal: Another benefit of combining your policies is that you will only have to renew one contract each time. Therefore, you can review your contract, search for quotes, and sign a new contract only once.
- One place to contact: If you have to make a claim, have a question, or need to contact your insurer for any other reason, you will only have to talk with one company and one insurance profession. It’s nice to know that you only have to contact one person for all of your home and auto insurance needs.
Outside of saving you money, there are also many additional benefits that you will experience when you combine your home and auto insurance into a single policy. Doing this will simplify your insurance and save you money at the same time.
We have all of our insurance combined through USAA. We love the convenience and it does cut down our cost by a good 10-15% by doing it that way. We also love that we can make just one call and handle any of the issues related to the insurance.
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It really would simplify things a lot. So it’s nice that you can also save money by going that route. We don’t have that option here since the government handles vehicle insurance.
While I agree that it’s usually better to combine, on some rare occasions I’ve found that actually splitting your insurances can save money. It depends on the situation (all insurances are based on age, the vehicle, the house, etc….), but it happened enough that we’d always evaluate both possibilities.
BTW, great picture. That’s a bad, bad, bad day.
AverageJoe recently posted..5 Great Stock Buying Tips To Practice Today
Yep, you don’t just want to assume that combining your insurance is cheapest. With your specific situation each type of insurance might be cheaper going through separate companies. It’s just part of the price comparison process that people should go through.
I try not to look at just the price these days. When I’ve had to make claims in the past I’ve found a big difference between the service provided by different providers, so if I find a good one I try and stick with them if they can get close to a rival quote.
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Good point. A low price isn’t such a good thing if it means you will have a tough time getting any claims covered. You have to take all factors into consideration.
I have had my insurance with the same company for years. We have all of our policies with them because of two very important reasons. Customer service and convenience. They also beat everyone on price because we have multiple policies and have been with them for years. I check each year, but never find anyone that can match.
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Sounds like you’re with a solid company with the best of both worlds. Sometimes it can be tough to find a good company that offers a good price and good service. So if you find someone like that and they reward you for loyalty, there’s not much need to switch. You just have to make sure other companies don’t suddenly offer better deals.
I have tried to get things under one roof, but since my bank has my mortgage it had super cheap quotes on house insurance and I got the best quote from a specialized motor insurance. It is more of a hassle though to renew and check two quotes but the saving is decent enough for it to make sense.
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I can see why the bank would be able to offer a good insurance price when they are making big money off your insurance. While getting everything with one company would be convenient, the overall price is usually a bigger factor.
These are all definitely great ways to save. I know of some people who pay over $2,000 a year in car insurance and I just don’t get how that’s possible!
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I used to pay more than that…it was a combination of having a nice car, having had a recent accident that was deemed my fault and just being a young male. Thankfully my insurance has dropped a lot since then thanks to a clean driving record and a depreciating car.
We have also combined our insurance. It has helped to save us money. Each year, we try to find better rates with other companies, but have yet to find any better deals.
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I guess the trick is to not get too complacent with your combined insurance. Even if it’s a good deal now, it is worth checking each year.
When we owned the mobile home, not every company offered homeowners insurance for that type of property. But now that we are renting, I really do need to shop around for quotes on renter’s insurance.
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I can see why that would be the case. A mobile home is a lot more vulnerable and they could perceive extra risk there. Renters insurance is a good idea, but I’m not one to talk since I’ve never gotten it.
We have combined insurance – but I really need to get organized and see if we can get a better rate. Perhaps when we finally get around to getting another car..
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It does take a decent amount of organization to check for better rates each year. It almost makes me a bit glad that our BC government takes care of auto insurance. It’s one less thing to worry about anyway.
I have had all of my insurance policies bundled for as long I have had insurance and I have definitely enjoyed the savings.
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Smart move Nick. Provided you go with a quality company, I’d think that would be the best route.
We have our auto and home combined and you know it really makes everything so much easier. We have dealt with the same company now for years and it’s nice to build rapport with someone when you call rather than being a number, you get better rates, and they know what you want (at least in our case they do).
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I could definitely see it being a lot more convenient to combine things. When you do more business with a company you do usually get better service too. So if I had the option to combine my insurance I’d definitely look into it at least.
I simply had to comment and say that is easily the best picture for a blog post title I have seen in some time. You totally made me smile. That is all.
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lol thanks Cordelia. At least that driver could be dealing with the same company for both insurance claims.
I love the pic of the combined home and auto! They may have even saved money by combining their insurance on both! I recently switched my homeowners insurance to USA, which already had my auto. They were able to save me $300 a year. Ironically enough, because of strange laws and regulations in my State they can not offer a discount on the auto because I have both policies through them. I’m fine with that as their auto rates are already so low that I’m saving a ton of money with them. I also found a way for Non-USAA eligible people to get USAA affiliated insurance. I should have a post on that fairly soon.
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That is weird that they cannot give you a discount. I wonder what the reasoning is behind that law or regulation. Perhaps it is something to do with keeping business fair for the companies that only deal with auto insurance. $300 per year is decent savings for switching.
Ok, so first, awesome featured photo! Hah, for some reason I doubt the car insurance covered that!
I definitely agree that you can save a lot of money by consolidating under one company, I just wish that one company that I started with was a good one. They didn’t give me a good deal until I had already taken all of my business elsewhere (huge pain in the ass) and they wondered why I wouldn’t go back to them. Sure you can save by going with a small no name insurance company but I will say that the big ones do often run smoother.
I have to agree that picture is one of the best I have ever seen lol
I’m not sure who I feel worse for the person with the whole in their house or the one that crashed into it.
Perhaps that person is the same person. The driver might’ve been covered if he had good insurance. That does suck that companies are more willing to win you back rather than when trying to keep you as a customer. It’s like they’re calling your bluff. I don’t blame you for not wanting to switch back, but sometimes you have to put money before pride and the hassle.
Saving money has been a practice. For me, I always think first about the service and offers before the price. With so many providers nowadays, you can compare their quotes and pick the best for you.
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For me I’m all about the price and not so much the service. I figure the price is something I can benefit from year round while the service is only important if something bad happens.
One of my friends recently shared her experience of finding a new insurance carrier for her home and auto. She was changing companies because the customer service she and her husband were receiving was dismal. She decided to change to another company when her son was involved in a car accident and the carrier of the person responsible did such a good job in communicating with her and taking care of the car that she moved her car and home insurance to them!
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Sounds like a good company if she switched insurance coverage on both her home and car. That really shows the importance of companies hiring quality service reps. They can make so much difference in a company’s bottom line. Sometimes a company’s policies can get in the way of that though.