Strategies to reduce insurance

Insurance is huge expense when you have many properties.

Looking at ways to reduce this. Currently, I have all my properties insured with GIO, they give me a discount of 10%. I have been too lazy to shop it.

Any ideas?
Recommend most competitive company?
Insurance brokers? can this work?

I don't want to reinvent the wheel if something is working well lets share so we can all benefit.

Thanks

MTR

 

I would also like to know this. Obviously you get the discounts with multiple policies but it seems to be getting more expensive We are in the process of buying a house and the quoted building replacement for cover came in at over $300000 more than the actual sale price. Makes me wonder whether that is necessary or just to assist in bumping up the premiums.

 

Youi fight very hard to win business, particularly if you are asking them to quote for multiple properties. Their pricing starts to get inconsistent and less competitive after a year or two. I have two IPs in suburbs with very similar crime stats and both properties have a similar replacement cost. One is double the cost of the other. Even though I quized them about it, they wouldn't budge. I just don't have the energy to change at the moment.

You can easily burn 1-2 hrs on the phone with each insurer once you try to get quotes for multiple properties. It makes it worse when they start asking about irrelevant items as well such as cars, trailers - it just wastes time! My patience gets tested very quickly.

 

My pet hate spending time on the phone on this stuff, hence why I am hoping someone has done the hard yards.

 

A very simple way is ask what the total demo-rubbish -removal-rebuild costs are in your insurance policy per property "if" a flood fire or cyclone tree wiped out the house..From what i found after base line rebuilds cost some through my mistakes were in the 300k rebuilds ,i reset those down too 200k for rebuilds and saved up too 400 dollars on several..imho..

 

If you can, do it all online.
I know NRMA charge 10% MORE if you call them, compared to online.

I use websites like compare the market to dee who comes in cheaper (i provide fake details so they dont call me), and then i go direct to the listed companies websites and do a quote there (sometimes cheaper again!).

Just redone my PPOR and cars.. saving more than 2k/yr.

 

The best way to save on insurance is not to pay it. This only works well if you have a huge portfolio and you are very risk tolerant.

If you held say 15 properties and insurance was say $800 per house then your looking at 12k in insurance. Don't pay it and Chances are you will come out on top even if you needed to make a few yearly repairs.

Maybe not the best strategy if you live in a fire or flood zone. That said not a strategy I would be employing, I have read of people doing this though.

 

10% off with any insurer may be costing thousands ! or tens of. I think there is no way round checking by phone on pricing, price can vary greatly between insurers in different areas.

There is no shortcuts here, here is what I reckon

1 work out who pays when it is claim time
2 I prefer flood cover even where there is no floods
3 look at the PDS , make sure they will cover your building and situation, check policy on leases, if on periodic, what they offer etc
4 look at if they will split the portions, for instance Suncorp is a fantastic insurer, but will not cut out the rental and tenant portion and do building only.


Actually, this may be no 2, work out if you need good landlord policy, or if that is not as important.

 

I have all my policies (about 20) with Budget Direct. They have a policy manager system which enables you to link them all together and access online.

 

One of my tenants works for Budget Direct. He is not going to say anything negative about his employer, but he gestures enough to get the message across that they aren't the best when it comes to calling upon them at claim time.

 

They are absolutely horrendous!
My car got keyed on the boot when I was at the supermarket so I called to make a claim. Turns out the excess was only slightly cheaper than the repair but then it would damage my rating...fair enough I'll cop that so didn't proceed.

I called them a couple of months later to insure a new car I purchased. "No sir we won't insure you, your high risk!!!" Safe to say the poor chap on the end of the line copped an absolute blasting. Insured with them for 5 years, called upon them once and they didn't help because of excess and then because I get keyed away from home, I'm too high risk for their books.

You can bet all my insurances got pulled from them.

 

Legally if you are using banks money you must have your properties insured.

 

so are they competitive?

 

MTR with your sizeable portfolio, self insuring is a viable option on the landlord. Eg if you had 10 properties each costing $300pa in landlord cover, then you may considerm a tenant default damage etc claim of $3000 vs likelihood to be an acceptable risk.

I have only had to claim once in all my time investing, it was a $12k claim of which $9k was paid out. Over time I suspect self insuring would have come out ahead.

Building insurance though. shop around. I go online and find a few quotes eg Alliaz, QBE, EBM, TS etc etc and put building with who is cheapest unless the combined EBM policy is the same/less.

 

Your not insured if you're with budget direct when claiming.
Their individual claim fee will cost more than all the damages.
Had 5700 in damages last year, didn't claim for any of it as it came back at 5 seperate claims and almost the same amount as the damages. Also one claim was for damaged floor boards, they would only pay 70 bucks for the square metre damage, and I had to find my own tradies to replace...also those floor boards are no longer in production meaning I either replace the whole room at 1700, or have odd looking floor boards.
Get proper insurance please, they are the worst.

@MTR terryscheer give 10% discount if insuring more than 3. Keeping the claim access higher if the unlikely occurs, will reduce the premium slightly.
I found Gio to be good as well, but Terry better.
Just had another claim settle and Terry paid for all of it, wasn't out of pocket either which was nice.

 

You are correct but very few ask for this.

 

My tip:
Don't pay the insurance renewal lazy tax.
When your insurance lapses do not pay the renewal notice. Go back online - fill out the online quote for exactly the same level of cover - 9 times out of 10 you will save at least $80-150 per policy.
Added up across a few policies it's not too bad

 

I assume banks only require building...

A few of mine with good tenants i only have building and landlord liability... ( the latter being 13$ a month or something)

Also have a few with Budget., sounds like it is a bad idea eh