How to Find the Cheapest Home Insurance in Florida

The price you pay on your home insurance premium can vary by a huge margin, and this can add up to hundreds of dollars each year if you don’t do your due diligence and find a cheap but quality option. However, it can be challenging when you try to navigate different companies and policies, and getting lost is easy. We’ll give you several useful tips to help you find the cheapest home insurance company in Florida below.

1. Shop Around

One of the best things you can do yourself is to take the time to shop for different insurance companies. You can ask friends or family for recommendations, do a quick search, or take a look at the National Association of Insurance Commissioners website. This site lists local insurance companies and complaints. Generally speaking, the fewer complaints a company has, the cheaper their insurance premium will be.

2. Ask About Bundling Discounts

You most likely have several types of insurance like auto and home insurance policies. Any home insurance company you pick will be thrilled to have as much business from you as possible, and this is why many of these companies offer discounts if you bundle. When you do this, you’re adding multiple policies together. Don’t be afraid to ask if they have a discount for this, and compare the discount to the traditional price of both policies to see how much you’d save.

3. Don’t Over-Insure Your Property

When you pick out home insurance, remember to insure it for what it would cost to rebuild it instead of rebuy it. This is important because your home’s market value includes the value of your land and your location. A homeowner’s policy usually won’t pay for land damage if something happens. Also, take careful inventory of your items to ensure you have enough coverage to pay for them, but not too much. This can require periodically updating everything.

4. Ask About Safety Feature Discounts

Your home should have several standard safety features like smoke detectors, deadbolts, fire extinguishers, and carbon monoxide detectors. If you do, ask about a safety discount. If you live in an area that is prone to disasters, check and see if there are specific home modifications that will net you another discount. Storm shutters, stronger roofs, storm-resistant garage doors, and windows that are shatter-proof are all solid possibilities.

5. Take Risky Choices Into Consideration

Certain features on your property or in your home can cause your premiums to go up because the insurance companies see this as an increased claim risk. Remember to tell the home insurance companies if you have things like a trampoline, pool, or specific dog breeds. This could drive your policy up, even if you’re just shopping.

6. Be Honest

Honesty a huge key to getting a lower insurance premium and cheaper insurance overall. It’s also an important step in making sure that your insurance company doesn’t drop you when they find out you lied. You want to be very honest about anything in your home that could cause your premiums to go up. This could include structural problems, weather complications, and the value of the items in your home. If you’re honest, companies can give you accurate estimates.

7. Have Good Credit

Your credit score plays a role in how cheap or expensive your home insurance is. The better it is, the lower risk you look to any insurance companies. If you don’t have good credit, you may want to take the time to build your credit up to so you can get cheaper rates. You may want to ask what their premium range is depending on where your credit score falls.

8. Ask About Deductible Tiers

Most home insurance companies offer different deductible levels. The higher the deductible is, the lower the premium is. However, you’ll also have to pay more when you file a claim if you have a higher deductible. Be sure that you ask your insurance companies what their deductible tiers are and which factors influence the costs. This will give you a good idea of which ones are the cheapest.

9. Review Your Policy Annually

Your rates can change from year to year, and this means that what was the cheapest policy one year may not be the cheapest policy the next. If you don’t review your policy on an annual basis, you could end up paying hundreds of dollars that you don’t necessarily need to pay. You can avoid this by looking at different policies each year.

10. Tailor Your Policy to Your Needs

It’s essential that you periodically update your insurance coverage, so it suits your needs as circumstances change. This could even lower your home insurance costs if you do things like remove items from your property that represent a risk like a pool and install security features. You can update your policy more than once a year, and you may want to do a quick search every time you do to ensure you have the lowest rates.

11. Try to Get Little-Known Discounts

When you’re shopping around with various insurance companies, ask about their discount list. Some offer discounts to military personnel or offer discounts to members of specific associations or alumni. Nonsmokers, seniors, and people who have been members of the insurance company for years are also good discounts to ask about. They may not offer them all, but you could be pleasantly surprised.

12. Consider A-La-Cart Over Traditional Plans

Sometimes, it’s cheapest to build your own plan out of a host of options instead of getting a prepackaged policy. If the company offers it, make sure you ask about it. It’s usually cheaper to build a plan because you may have some specific points that traditional packages don’t cover.