Insurance Smarts for Today’s Consumers: Should You Bundle to Save Bucks?

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Insurance is a big expense for a lot of families and with so many different kinds of insurance available, it can be hard to keep track of them all.  Policy rates can also increase over time without you knowing, which means you could be missing out on valuable discounts and hundreds of dollars’ worth of savings. However, one of the best ways to save yourself time and money is to “bundle” your insurance plans together. Here’s how:

What Does “Bundling” Entail?

When you bundle your insurance together, this means that you’re purchasing a number of insurance plans from a single carrier. This carrier may also provide you with a bundling discount which helps to reduce your insurance premiums. And even though the most common policies that are bundled together are homeowner and auto policies, you can often add other things such as casualty or property insurance into your bundle.

But before you start bundling your policies together, it’s a good idea to do some thorough research.  Whilst bundling will, in most cases, save you money, if you don’t get it right, it could end up costing you the same if not more than your existing plans.

The Advantages of Bundling

When you start doing the research for your next auto insurance plan, you’ll probably find that many companies offer savings of up to 30% when you bundle your home insurance with it. But if you then start adding on other policies, such as motorcycle coverage, you could push your savings up to as much as 35%!

It’s also worth checking out whether you can save through deductibles too (these are the excess amounts you’ll pay when you make a claim on your insurance). Some companies will provide policies that will enable you to pay just one deductible (the one for the highest amount) if you had to claim on all of your bundled policies at once. For example, if your car, house and motorcycle were damaged in a hurricane, you’d only pay one deductible instead of all three. But if your policies for all of these were held with different carriers, you could end up with a huge bill as you pay out all three of these deductibles.

Convenience is another huge advantage here because when you need to make more than one claim you only have to deal with one company rather than several at once. This helps you to manage your policies with greater ease, reducing the amount of paperwork you have to do while also giving you just one date to remember when it comes to renewing your policies.

Furthermore, because this one carrier has all of your information and knows what policies you’ve taken out, they can also identify if there are any gaps in your coverage. With this access, they can then provide you with advice on what additional coverage you may need.

Examine What’s On Offer Before You Bundle

Before you start bundling all of your policies together, it’s important that you do shop around for all of the latest deals. Some companies will specialize in particular products, e.g. auto insurance, so you may find that you’ll get a better deal from them than another company who can bundle your policies together. This is because, for many insurers, there’s more profit in auto insurance than home insurance, which is why you’ll find more competition around for these types of policies. Shopping around and looking at each of these policies in detail could help you to get a better deal than you would if you bundled things together.

Another key point to look out for when you’re examining policies is what protection the insurance company is offering you. Some may be better at insuring homes than cars and vice versa, so their policies might not cover everything that you need them to. Always read the small print to find out what protection levels are being offered before you decide to bundle with one company.

And finally, don’t forget to ask what discounts are available from each of the companies you’ve found that you could bundle with. Compare the prices from these various companies, making sure the deductibles and coverage are equal before you decide who you’re going to go with. Don’t be tempted solely by price either as the quality of your insurance policy is just as important, if not more so, than the discount on offer.

Zara Banks has experience working for an insurance company. Now on maternity leave she is spending some of her time writing articles, using her knowledge to help others.