Save money on your homeowners insurance

Buying a home is a valuable investment. Along with providing a place for you and your family to build lasting memories, a home is a great way to plan for retirement. While many potential homeowners are understandably concerned with getting the best interest rate and lowest mortgage payment possible, other costs can be trimmed as well.

Perhaps the biggest area where most homeowners would prefer to trim some fat off their monthly bills is with their homeowner's insurance. While such a thought might seem like false hope, according to the Insurance Information Institute, there are a variety of ways homeowners can lessen the blow of their monthly insurance bill.

1) Raise your deductible. Raising your deductible is perhaps the quickest way to lessen your monthly insurance expense. Deductibles are the amount you have to pay toward a loss before your insurance company begins to pay. A $500 deductible means you would have to pay $500 toward damages to your home, and your insurance company would then pay the rest, if those damages were covered under your policy. A homeowner who chooses to raise his deductible from $500 to $1,000, however, might save up to 25 percent on his monthly insurance costs.

2) Make your home more disaster-resistant. Regardless of where you live, your home is susceptible to some type of disaster. Perhaps your region is prone to earthquakes, tornadoes or even hailstorms or hurricanes. These days it seems nowhere is safe from natural disasters. Therefore, making your home more disaster resistant is another possible way of cutting your homeowners insurance costs. Adding storm shutters and roof reinforcements might enable you to save you some money. Doing some inside remodeling with newer appliances can also reduce the risk of fire or water damage to your home, which should lead to lower monthly insurance costs.

3) Install or upgrade a home-security system. While the initial costs of installing
or upgrading a home-security system might seem costly, some insurance companies make it more than worth your while, slashing your premiums by as much as 20 percent if certain systems are installed. Typically, an insurance company will you give you the biggest discount if you install a fire or burglar alarm system that immediately notifies local police, fire officials or even a company with a monitoring system. The best way to determine if such systems are worth the investment is to speak with your insurance provider first and ask about which systems garner the biggest discounts.

4) Keep a good credit rating. This is sound advice even for people who aren't homeowners but would like to be someday. Though it hasn 't come without controversy, many insurance companies are now looking at credit ratings when determining prices for homeowners' insurance policies. Having and maintaining a strong credit history is entirely under your control and can save you money in the long run.

5) Stay with the same company. Insurance companies typically reward their longtime customers with strong payment histories by offering them lower rates. More often than not, this works on a tier system, where customers who have been with a provider for X amount of years will get a certain percentage discount. That percentage typically rises with each period spent with the company. However, keep an eye on rates from other companies just to make sure you're getting the best rate possible.

Visit QuoteRetriever.com to review instant homeowners insurance comparison quotes online.