The Expert Podcast

So in our last video, we talked about automobile insurance rates. Today, we're going to talk more about homeowners insurance rates, and this also goes to condominium renters insurance. You're going to see increases in your annual premiums going through the roof. In the article you see here, they're talking about 50% premium increases, some of which are even higher than that, so if you have a homeowner's policy, a condo policy, or a renters policy, you're going to see your rates go through the roof, even if you haven't already seen them. Automotive rates and car insurance rates have done the same thing, so what do you do if you are a personal lines insurance client? That's what these policies are called personal lines.

Well, the one thing you don't want to do is go uninsured, even if you own your home or car for cash. You could maybe not have insurance, but you don't want to do that because everything you've saved up for to buy that house or car is at risk if you have no insurance. But what you can do to lower your insurance rates is to make a couple changes to your policy. If you need more information, you can click our website, riskcoverage.com. You can also consult with a live insurance agent, insurance broker, or licensed broker to get a second opinion.

We won't sell you homeowners insurance we won't sell you car insurance we're not in that business we only do commercial insurance but those Brokers can give you advice on what to do with your policies to lower your rates with your existing carrier or maybe shop around for another carrier so here's what you do first look at raising your deductible if you have a $200 or $500 deductible look at 1,000 or 2,000 on your homeowners maybe even 5,000 deductible so if something happens to your home the first 5,000 you pay out of pocket it's almost like going without insurance except for something catastrophic remember you're on the hook for that first part of the claim so make sure you have the cash and the capital to be able to handle that you don't want a $3,000 claim to bankrupt you right.

The second thing you want to do is to look at all of your limits you don't want to necessarily lower your limits but you want to make sure they're in line with what your exposure would be also if you want to have more coverage for catastrophic you can get an umbrella policy a lot of times if you go from let's say a $500 deductible to a $5,000 deductible your insurance rates will go down tremendously maybe $1,000 a year you might be able to add on in uh umbrella policy that takes your upper limit from let's say a million to 2 million for maybe $400 a year so you're saving money and still getting more coverage the key is to match your coverage to really what your risk profile is you're probably not worried about the $500,000 $22,000 things that could happen to your house you're worried about the big things right make your insurance match what your finances are.

Also, no matter what deductible you have, don't file a claim unless it is going to affect your personal financial security. Even if you have a $5,000 deductible and you have an $88,000 claim, remember that you're only going to be getting $3,000 if you file that claim. If you have an $88,000 claim, the first 5,000 you take care of and the 3,000 you'll get from the insurance company, it's almost certain that your rates are going to go up and that 3,000 you'll pay back over the next two or three years, so unless it's crucial to your finances, you're out of money.

Many homeowners are going to find over the next few years that they will get non-renewed that's the insurance company's way of saying canceled or they're going to not be able to have coverage or their insurance carriers going to jack up their rates or they might even do something like have higher underwriting make you have a new roof make you have a new wood stove make yourself look appealing to the insurance companies look the reason for this is not necessarily greed yeah they make money but they're getting hit with so many claims and these claims are going through the roof in terms of how expensive they are inflation uh supply chain issues replacement cost of items is so much higher and you have more catastrophic events hurricanes fires um tornadoes are wiping out whole subdivision the insurance companies have had more claims losses in the last three years than they've had in decades so they're looking to try to make sure that they have enough money to pay claims they have to raise your rates match your policy to what your finances are we can get more details on this in your particular scenario click the link below at risk coverage.com to get insurance consultation.