5 Essential Tips for Insuring Your Assets and Reducing Premiums

Insuring your assets protects you from major financial shocks, and smart policy choices can also put hundreds of dollars back in your pocket every year. Using real numbers makes it easier to see how reviewing, bundling and fine‑tuning your cover can translate into annual savings.

Understanding Asset Insurance

Asset insurance for your home, car and valuables is designed to shield you from big, unexpected costs like accidents, theft or natural disasters. But because premiums are recurring, even modest percentage savings can add up to 300–600 or more per year for a typical household with both home and auto cover.

1. Review Your Coverage Annually

As property values and personal circumstances change, staying on an old policy can mean paying for cover you no longer need. For example, if your home insurance is based on a rebuild value of 500,000 but a new assessment shows 430,000 is sufficient, trimming the sum insured by 14% could reduce a 1,550 annual premium by a similar proportion, saving around 215 per year while still fully covering you. Doing a quick yearly check on car usage (kilometres driven, how the car is used) can also unlock lower‑risk ratings that shave another 50–150 off auto premiums.

2. Bundle Your Insurance Policies

Bundling home and auto insurance often unlocks multi‑policy discounts in the 10–25% range. Using a simple example, if you pay 1,500 per year for car insurance and 1,000 for home insurance (2,500 total), a 20% bundle discount would cut the combined cost to 2,000, saving 500 every year; even a more conservative 14% average discount would still save about 350 annually. Over five years, that 350–500 per year equates to 1,750–2,500 kept in your pocket without reducing core coverage.

3. Increase Your Deductible (Excess)

Raising your deductible (excess) is one of the most direct levers to lower premiums, as you agree to pay more out of pocket if you claim. Industry data shows that lifting a home insurance deductible from 500 to 1,000 can cut annual premiums by roughly 10–20%, and some analyses put the typical saving at about 200 per year on an average 1,550 policy. Pushing the deductible up to 2,500 can drop premiums by as much as 30%, which in this example would reduce the annual bill to around 1,080—saving about 470 each year, or 2,350 over five years if you rarely claim.

4. Maintain a Good Credit Score

In many regions, insurers factor credit into pricing, rewarding higher scores with lower premiums because they are associated with fewer and smaller claims. While the exact numbers vary, it is common for drivers with strong credit to pay several hundred dollars less per year for auto insurance than similar drivers with poor credit—for instance, a gap of 300–500 annually on a full‑coverage car policy is not unusual. Spread across both home and auto, improving credit could realistically trim 200–600 per year once your policies are re‑rated at renewal.

5. Take Advantage of Discounts

Insurers offer a range of discounts for lower‑risk behaviour and added protection, and stacking them can materially reduce your yearly costs. For example:

• A monitored home security system can earn 5–20% off your home premium; on a 1,500 policy, even a 10% discount is 150 saved annually.

• Multi‑policy and no‑claim discounts might add another 5–15%; on combined home and auto premiums of 2,500, an extra 10% discount is 250 per year.

Put together, a household using bundling, a higher deductible and common discounts could easily trim 600–1,000 per year from typical home and auto insurance costs while maintaining robust protection.

By reviewing cover annually, bundling where it makes sense, choosing a sensible higher deductible, keeping a strong credit profile and actively asking about discounts, you turn insurance from a static bill into an area of active, measurable savings each year.