In a world where the price of everything is increasing, it can feel like you are in a helpless situation. It seems like worldwide situations fuelling inflation are just growing in number and there’s relatively little to done about it. Do you feel helpless in this surging sea of expenses? Would you like to learn what you can do to bring the costs down?
Rising Cost of Premiums
If you’ve noticed that building insurance premiums are more expensive than ever, your observance is correct. Insurance is a non-negotiable expense – if you’re the owner of any kind of property, whether it’s inhabited by you or anyone else, you realise just how crucial it is to have relevant, up-to-date insurance to protect your building from the damage caused by various elements. There is no choice but to pay for insurance if you want to save yourself the astronomical expense of covering repairs and rebuilding project from out of your own pocket. This can make you feel like you are in a helpless situation has you face either the high cost of buying insurance or the high cost of going without.
Why are insurance premiums so high? Basically, the world factors fuelling inflation in every industry are the same ones affecting the rising costs of insurance. Rebuilding expenses are higher than ever before as pandemic induced delays in supply chains and limited resources due to sanctions on Russia cause the cost of building materials to go through the roof. If the value of your property therefore begins to exceed the insured amount as estimate from the original Buildings Declared Value on your policy, you run the risk of becoming underinsured. To account for this, you’ll find yourself paying a higher and higher premium to reflect the growing value of your property. Deacon, a specialist building insurance provider, comments on this trend with the fact that a block of flats that would have costs £500,000 to build in 2020 would have risen to the cost of £544,000 by 2021.
Don’t Be Afraid to Take Action
If the factors fuelling inflation are global ones of pandemics and wars, you’re right in thinking there is nothing you can do to control these elements nor any way of knowing or predicting the problems that may begin to arise in the future. However, the situation is not without hope. There are practical things you can do to reduce your bill when it comes to building insurance premiums. Basically, you need to make yourself as attractive to insurance providers as possible, make yourself a low risk, high return customer for the insurance provider and you are more likely to find a reasonable policy in the first place, while also reducing the cost of premiums while you’re at it. What can you do practically to achieve this goal?
How to Lower Your Insurance Premium
Here are the “Three Easy E’s” of building insurance:
- Educate yourself and any tenants in your building in the best practises to employ when dealing with minor issues that could develop to problems that require a claim on the insurance. Water damage is one of the most common causes of building insurance claims yet also one of the easiest to prevent by taking preventative action and showing a little initiative.
- Keep your property value up to date and relevant by organising regular evaluations. This will ensure that your property doesn’t become under insured causing a bigger expense in the future.
- If you can and you have the funds to do so, see if you can find a policy with a larger voluntary excess. If you need to make a claim you will pay more out of your own pocket, but the ongoing costs of insurance and the premium involved will become a lot cheaper.
