Saving Money tips with Car insurance, breakdown cover, insuring your home, travel insurance and rubbish!.

11 – Car insurance

You have a car, and the time has come to renew your car insurance, you tend to ignore the reminder letters and just keep paying!

Many car insurance companies offer deals for new policies, the Post Office used to give you back £50 once they have received their first payment, for some reason you never received £50 when you renewed your policy a year after, although the offer was still going!

Take a look at moneysupermarket.com have look at all the quotes and what the amount of money you could save.

Make sure you get the right insurance policy.

Do not get a fully comprehensive policy is your car is worth less than £1000! You do not want to pay an extortionate fee for an insurance policy if your car is basically not worth it.

Look at how much excess you will pay if you have an accident. If you have an accident you insurance provider will, expect you to pay the first £50, £100 or £200 etc. The higher the excess the lower your insurance premium will be. My personal opinion is that I would expect to fix my car myself if the bill was less than £200, and for £200 I would not want to lose my no claims bonus. I only need to claim if my accident totally destroys my car, then £200 is worth it for £1000 car!

Understand your policy, items like getting a replacement car in the event of an accident is useful, but do you need it?

No claims protection is OK, but once you have an accident, in most cases your no claims bonus is only good for the insurance company you are with. Once you change policy provider your no claims bonus is likely to go. No accident and your no claims bonus can be transferred, but be cautious with ‘no claims protection’.

Simple 3rd party insurance is the cheapest car insurance policy you can get, it will only cover you for third party, the other person. You get nothing! Which is OK if they hit you! Work out how much your car is worth and how much you need it.

Some useful links:

12 – Breakdown Cover

AA, RAC or National they all offer various services, you may not want!

Do you need help if your car does not start at home? 9 out of 10 times you will just be told to take it to a garage. OK you may a have a flat battery, but surely a neighbour can help give you a jump start

Check to see if you getting value for money, a simple phone call to then AA dropped my premium by £10 a month just by stating I could get the same service from the RAC for less (obviously I had to prove it, tell them about www.rac.com).

Some useful links:

13 – Insuring your home

Nobody needs to insure their home, it is not law, unlike car insurance! There are two categories of home insurance, which you can usually combine in to one policy.

First you home, what happens if it burns down. Literally you come home from holiday to find a pile of ashes, the only thing you own is the plot of land! Home insurance will insure you can build a house to the value of your existing house!

Check to see what your are already paying for, if you live in a flat, your yearly ground rent should cover you for buildings insurance, get a copy of the policy and make sure you understand what is covered with the insurance policy.

Secondly contents insurance, this is for all the items in your home, the TV, video, computer, carpets, etc will all be replaced if they are damaged. So you come home from holiday to find out your been burgled! If you live in a one bed flat with one TV a laptop computer which is locked away when not in use, it would be cheaper not to have contents insurance. My flat was broken in to years ago, all that was taken was a small collection of CD’s. The money I saved by not having contents insurance easily replaced all the CD’s. It is up to you, if you have contents insurance or not.

Check with the insurance provider to see what the cheapest policy will cover you for, i.e. if a water pipe bursts and destroys carpets, the TV etc. Living in a third floor flat you do not want flood damage! Work out how much all the items in your home are worth, don’t pay for insurance cover for £1000,000 when you only own £10,000 worth of goods.

Some useful links:

14 – Travel Insurance

I have travelled many times without travel insurance, although I am not advising you do it. I look at what I may need and see if I need to be covered!

When booking your travel arrangements check to see what you are covered for, ABTA gives an insurance just for booking a holiday, you do not have to pay any extra.

If travelling to the EEC, fill in a form at the Post Office and this will cover you for free medical cover in the EEC and it is FREE.

Purchasing items with credit cards, I know Barclaycard covers you for item purchased abroad if they are stolen, check with you credit card provider they may offer even more useful features.

When you hire a car, you automatically get car insurance cover. Your home insurance may even cover you for the items you are taking on holiday, check your policy.

Do not carry too much cash around, I separate my money in to days £700 is £100 a day. I carry the £10 on me and the £600 I leave at the hotel, either hidden in two places or place in the hotel safe, some hotels have safe’s in the room.

If you get robbed at home, you do not have insurance it is just bad luck. On holiday is just the same, be street wise. Do not show large sums of money, know where you going and do not open the whole map out on a street corner and look completely lost. Ask for directions or go and get a coffee sit down and work out your bearings.

If you decide not to have travel insurance, then DO NOT do anything considered dangerous, bungee jumping etc. If you do have travel insurance check you are covered for bungee jumping, the insurance company may say it is stupidity and not as standard cover. I advise insurance cover if you are doing anything usual, especially skiing etc, make sure the insurance company knows what you are doing prior to going on holiday.

The insurance policy can be a mine field. I had to claim once and received nothing for my trouble of being prepared. What ever you claim for you need a receipt, or pre warn your insurance company. So the camera is really not insured unless you have a receipt, as with the video camera and the money! You cannot just come home from holiday and write a nice letter saying what an awful time you have had. Insurance companies need evidence, receipts, police numbers, did you report it to the hotel, the holiday rep, names, times dates are all required. You cannot claim for your £800 video camera if you do not have a receipt and prove you actually had it stolen!

Travel insurance or not simply being prepared can save you money, make sure you get to the airport early, A few hours in the bar does me a world of good, especially knowing I am not stuck in traffic and have booked in my luggage. Make sure you only take items you need, do not take you £1000 laptop if you are not going to need it use it!

Some useful links:

15 – Rubbish

I do not want to go to much in to depth with this, take a look at ‘making money on the internet’.

Basically everything we buy we eventually get rid of, think about selling it on eBay. Children’s clothes is one obvious example, unwanted Christmas presents, old books you have read, video’s DVD’s you have watched all items you can get good money for on eBay!

If you have no offers on eBay, think about selling your unwanted items at a car-boot sale. Do the car-sale with a friend and share expenses £10 a pitch can be shared to £5 each! It also helps for toilet and coffee breaks.

Some useful links: