The future can be very hard to predict, and this certainly applies to your financial situation as well. You never know when an adverse incident, such as your home flooding or burning or a major health crisis, could take a big bite out of your financial resources and security that insurance could have paid for.
The right insurance can provide the cushion that you need for preventing financial ruin. However, in attempts to take out insurance, you could too easily make blunders that put you out of pocket before the insurance is even drawn upon. Here are mistakes to avoid making in future.
Forgoing even basic insurance
It’s probably best to deem insurance not simply a nice extra, but instead a necessity… certainly as far as rudimentary insurance goes. For instance, for countering the threat of fire or thefts, you should consider home insurance indispensible, The Balance says.
Meanwhile, car insurance can help you financially recover from vehicle-based accidents. In the United Kingdom, car insurance is actually legally mandatory for driving on the country’s roads. In that country, you need at least what is known as third party cover, so-called as it would enable your payment of damages to third parties such as fellow drivers and pedestrians.
In the United States, health insurance is particularly concerning. This insurance can help prevent you becoming crippled by medical bills – and you should also keep in mind that, without it, you will be fined under the terms of the Affordable Care Act.
Opting for more insurance than you need
It’s clear, then, that you shouldn’t overlook the essentials; however, you might not always be able to discern exactly what those essentials are. This can be a particular obstacle with liability insurance. An insurance agent, especially an independent one, can assess your assets before advising the best means of insuring them.
However, one basic principle is that, the younger you are, the less insurance you tend to need – as you are likely to have fewer assets that you could even consider insuring. Also, once you have narrowed down the choice of insurance to what seems genuinely necessary for you specifically, there’s still scope for you to make savings if you seek an insurance broker’s help.
One good example of such a broker is the UK-based Call Wiser. A huge variety of types of insurance is available through this company – and, in each case, the broker can take just minutes to compare policies from various insurance providers before presenting a quote for the best of these.
Choosing less insurance than is really necessary
Naturally, in your efforts to reduce your insurance obligations, you should be careful not to go too far the other way. You might think that you are striking the right balance in the number of insurance policies you take out; however, have you stopped to look closely at the small print?
Each policy will include details of the maximum amount it will pay out in the event that you need to draw upon the insurance. So, while that amount could be $1 million on a health insurance policy, a major illness like cancer could actually be costlier than this for you to banish.
Not taking out life insurance while young
If you are currently in your 20s and don’t have children, it’s an especially good time to opt for life insurance. This is because, as life insurance is intended to help maintain dependents’ lifestyles if the policyholder dies, you are considered a lower risk to insurers due to your lack of dependents. As a result, your premiums will be more forgiving.
Of course, if the insurance policy will stay in place for your whole life, you will be making regular payments for longer than someone who starts taking out that policy in their 40s. However, your premiums should still remain very low.
Not regularly considering switching to a new policy
If you habitually simply renew an insurance policy whenever you are prompted to do so, you could end up spending much more money on that policy than what would really be necessary. That’s because insurers often choose to increase premiums at renewal time.
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority recently introduced rules intended to help prevent insurance holders from inadvertently agreeing to such unjust charges. Due to these rules, UK insurers need to “clearly, accurately and prominently” show the renewal price alongside what was paid in the previous year.
However, not all of the insurers have been fully complying with these rules, BT reports. The FCA notes that “some firms obscured the required information or did not place the information in a prominent position”. Therefore, if you are in the UK, you should remember to closely look over your next renewal prompt to help yourself discern whether you should stick with your particular policy.
