Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Tips For More Affordable Alabama Homeowners' Insurance Rates

By Chimezirim Odimba

Do you want to bring down your Alabama home owner insurance costs? Then you've come to the the article you need. I'll give you several proven recommendations that will make you qualify for many discounts. And this will be without compromising the level of coverage you enjoy. Here are the tips|they are...

It pays to buy more than one policy from the same insurance company as this will bring massive savings. This is known as a multi-policy discount and is given by all insurers. But you might make more savings with different insurance providers than you'll get from a multi-policy discount.

You can make your house almost disaster proof thereby lowering your risk and, as a result, your Alabama home owner insurance premium. Apart from ensuring you have everything in place to protect against fire and burglary, the following are recommended for various areas...

a. If you reside in a locality that's so susceptible to wind damage, you'll save much by fitting storm shutters.

b. Using a heavier roofing material will reduce your risk factor thereby making you get more savings on your Alabama homeowner insurance rates if you live in a windy area.

c. Retrofitting your home for earthquake protection.

d. For people who have trees on their properties, you will save yourself in your Alabama homeowners' insurance premium if you make sure you cut off every dead or dry branch because these can easily lead to liability claims.

e. Make sure you don't have tree branches with limbs above your roof or very close to your building. You will run a bigger risk of a branch falling off and damaging your roof. Depending on your roofing material, this could also lower its lifespan.

Your agent will tell you other things that you can do to ensure your home is a lower risk to your insurer.

It is also important to check if the discount you'll receive justifies the cost of using the recommendations. You will spend far less on your Alabama homeowners' insurance if you work with these.

Make sure you don't make the mistake of not subtracting the land's value from the home's value as you apply for an Alabama homeowner's insurance policy. Some people pay much more than they should on their Alabama homeowner insurance because they make this mistake. You've made same mistake if you insured your home for the price you bought it without finding out the cost of the land it's built on and deducting it.

If you made such a mistake, you need to review your Alabama homeowner's insurance coverage and go through it again with your agent. Deduct the land's value and you will find out that you will need far less coverage.

Doing this will lower your rates considerably and still leave with enough home insurance coverage. Always remember that insuring the land your house is built on is plain waste of money since it does give you any added advantage.

You will spend less if you take measures to reinforce your roof. Take serious note of this if you are in the East where high winds are more prevalent. Your agent should be able to give things you can do if you a discount this way.

Maintaining a government homeowner's insurance policy could be making you spend much more on home insurance than you would otherwise. Some areas used to find it difficult to get home insurance coverage. Then it was just the government's policy that was available to them. But this has changed in some areas as some private insurers have braved it and worked out a means of offering insurance to such places.

Many may still have little or no other way of getting home insurance coverage apart from a government homeowner's insurance. But if your area is now serviced by some private insurance providers you could save a lot more by switching to them.

You could save some hundreds of dollars by just receiving and evaluating quotes from at least five insurance quotes sites. And, it will require just about 25 minutes on the whole.

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