What Are You Paying Yearly for You Home Owners Insurance?

I have an independent insurance agent and she's worth her weight in gold. She has access to many insurance companies, does all the homework and gives me the explanation and camparisons so I can make an educated decision. Not all independents are created equal. Some sell you a policy and just renew it every year. Mine will re-evaluate and advise me to switch if she finds similar coverage for less $. She just saved me over $200 on my homeowners this year.

I'm an independent insurance agent in AZ. You can't compare your insurance premiums to anyone elses. Premiums are based on your credit, zip code, size and style of the house, replacement cost, coverage limit amounts, deductibles, etc. You can also have riders added which of course adds to the premiums. The best thing to do is use an independent agent because we have contracts with many different companies to find you the best price for the best coverage. Companies like Allstate, Farmers, etc, only work for one company so that is the only rate they can give you. Good luck.

Coverages vary from state to state. Your state should have a website where you can do a side by side comparison of coverages. I work in the industry, so if you need an explanation of coverages, message me. Prices vary greatly from compnay to company and state to state. Coverage for 150,000 home in my area runs anywhere from 1100 to 2,000 a yr for an HO-W policy. Policies come in basic - HOA (basic fire and lightning) Good - HOB (Replacement cost, expanded causes of loss) and best HO-W ( HOB with water coverage)
flood, earthquake and windstorn policies have to be purchased seperately. So when they say natural disaster, they are seriously misleading you!

I am in Plano/Allen Texas (northern Dallas burb) and my house insurance is around $2500 per year. That does include a special rider for my jewelry. We go through Farmers and have a good solid policy.

I'm in love with USAA (gotta be military or a family member of military, though). For three cars and a single family home, we pay just $195 a month for all four to be FULLY insured. Fantastic customer service, as well! Lots of discounts and options! I believe we pay about $25 a month for the home? It is close to that.

Blessed,

I agree with Diane. In the past my husband and I had talked about reducing our yearly premium for our house insurance, but decided against it. In January we had a house fire and I'm so glad we did not ask our agent to take anything out of our policy.

We have two different parts to our policy: 1. Replacement of contents - these are our belongings. Our policy is for replacement cost and so far the process has been pretty easy. 2 - Replacement of the structure - this part of policy is covering the repairs to our downstairs and part of our upstairs.

When we first purchased our policy through Farm Bureau, our agent suggested a fairly high number for both contents and structure. I'm glad he did because in the end we may need nearly all of the money to replace what we lost and the damage to the house.

Before you make any changes to your policy, I recommend you sit down with your agent and talk through each part so you and your husband completely understand what you have purchased. Then, you can talk with your agent about reducing the yearly premium without sacrificing too much coverage.

I hope you find the answers you are looking for and you never need to use your insurance.

C. J.

You need to figure out how much your structural home is valued. Then you need to figure out how much your contents (clothing, furniture, toys and such) are. Check around your area for the cost of a new home (sq footage) for replacement cost. I say this because if you are under insured and have a problem (like a fire) and lose everything you will get a lesser amount and you may not be able to rebuild your home like a neighbor of mine had a few years back and had to find another place (lot), a new loan and rebuild.

Your natural disasters are floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes and fires (from lightening). It depends on where you live as to which ones are more prevelant (I have to watch out for tornadoes and hail). Check with your local building department about flood plans to see if you need additional flood insurance.

Another cost in policy is the size of your deductible. Many companies are suggesting $1000 deductibles which means you must always have this amount up front before the policy pays for anything and in this economy that may be a tough one to swallow.

These are some ideas that I give you to think about. Also if you have any special amounts of jewelry over and above what the policy will cover you might want to think about a floater endorsement (this could be for silverware, cameras, computers, or other high valued items).

Good luck with your search.

The other S.

I have Farm Bureau Insurance. It is less than what I was paying through Frankenmuth and the coverage is better. The other plus is money from this company goes to farmers in Michigan.

I have my auto insurance with them as well and it is VERY reasonable.

I really like the your name of Blessed.

Many blessings.

Good Morning Blessed---We use an independent agent. I'd be glad to give you his name. One good thing about an independent agent is that he can get you insurance from many different companies and likely does that annual cost comparison as part of his service.

A red flag was raised when I heard the term 'market value'. I'm not sure exactly what that means, but it could be a dangerous decision if I'm right. I am told that we should be looking at REPLACEMENT value to insure our home because we'd likely rebuild where our current house stands. It will cost a lot more to rebuild a home than to just go out and buy a new one. Besides, you will still own a lot and then have to go out and purchase a new one with just 'market value' replacement. Be absolutely sure that the agent/broker thoroughly explains the difference between the two.

These guys want to sell you something and are working for you. If you don't get a satisfactory explanation, run, don't walk, away from their office. Hope this helps. Be well. D.

We just switched to Metropolitan and even with my employee discount, multi-policy discount etc. we are paying an very painful $1200 per year because we have lousy credit right now (thanks, Home Affordable Modification!). This is for an small home in New England outside of a flood zone. We pay a bit more than average because of our swimming pool. It was appx $600 a few years ago when we had better credit.

We were paying $600 a year.

Of course it varies depending on your home size & location. I recently just changed to AMICA. I love them. They pay dividends. So at the end of the year you get at least $200 back. My brother has been with them for years & never gets back less than $250. Their rates were so good (compared to St. Farm, Rockland Ins., etc.) that I even am using them for my car insurance too! Hope this helps!

Some insurance agents will go step by step with you to see what type of insurance your home/area needs. We are on the east side of Detroit, and some insurance agencies will not even insure us due to the area. I am with USAA and pay about $900.00 a year. You have to look at the replacement/rebuilding costs of your home and decide what plan to go with. Also make sure you have a clause in the contract for a place for you to live if you have to leave your home for some reason. Some agents will raise the value or your home, then the price, but the replacement costs will stay the same.

Do you have Erie insurance available to you? When we were looking they were the only company that we found that offered a type of disaster insurance (included at no cost), that if a horrible natural disaster like Katrina occurs near you, your house will be rebuilt no matter what supplies cost at that time. Most insurance companies will only cover what your house is insured for, so even if it would cost $500,000 to replace a $200,000 home, you would only get $200,000 toward the rebuild. Just something to think about...

We pay around $400 a year I believe, and like I said, they offered things that no one else did. Cheaper insurance normally is not the way to go. God forbid you ever need to use it, you don't want to be fighting about what you thought was covered versus what actually is. Good luck!

P.S. If you purchase auto and home at the same time through the same company it is normally quite a bit cheaper...