Strategies to reduce insurance

I am a big advocate of using a general insurance broker for insuring property.

Policy wording changes from company to company as does claim payout attitude. The underwriters give better cover to large broking groups like Steadfast than they do to the retail public.

It is also nice to have somebody support you if you have a nasty claim that is ongoing.

 

Any thought on the liability cover you may require at some point? Have you got enough of a rainy day fund to cover contingencies like this? Congrats if you do and are comfortable with this, personally I'm not sure I would want to see all my years hard wok disappear overnight

 

Anyone use CGU?
They don't offer multiple property discount, but I have found them to be the cheapest for contents (I rent), landlord's (for the unit I own), and looking at building + landlord's for my upcoming purchase.

 

if you self insured, what about the public liability cover, as most insurance would offer 20m? I like to self insured as I paid almost 10k a yr for all my insurances, n I have never had any claims in last few yrs

 

A company like Telstra self insures. But i think a private investor could get wiped out trying to self insure

 

I think most of the people commenting about self insuring are talking about self insuring the landlord insurance component but still having House and Contents Insurance.
I self insure for LL on my older properties that are on the demolition list. I have LL insurance with EBM on the newly created end product.

 

Fine if you choose to self insure your buildings, but at the very least make sure you have a very good public liability policy that specifically covers any incident on all the properties you own.
Marg

 

You can't avoid insurance if your getting loans from any regular lenders I know, so self insuring would only be for those with unencumbered property and significant wealth to cover themselves, I do not think it is out of the question to take on the risk, depends on what your properties are, for instance many may be worth more if the building was wiped out.

Yes, but only for building.

 

I don't think you would need to have $800 in insurance per house but I think you should have some cover to ease the hit that will cover most of it. I spend 375 per house which after a tax deduction only amounts to about $200 a year you would be mad not to have some basic cover. I have been under insuring for years and putting money in the share market instead and will be way ahead. Just because you are insured doesn't mean they will cough up. I made a claim with QBE the lawyers loved it arguing ( well not arguing but pretending and collecting fees) about nonsense and things that didn't happen and weren't interested in the facts, but just dragged it out for years trying to make me or somebody else negligent. It took years to get my money. So don't insure with QBE.

 

Very few ask for this at finance time, but when claiming time comes as a total write off, one will be in deep trouble.

 

How do you all get your premiums so cheap? I am paying $1900 and $2700 per year for a $600000 and a $750000 place and i tried several online quotes.

 

Where are these properties and is the quote based on house and land valuation or rebuild costs only?

 

Just 4 bedroom homes in suburbia. They are building contents and landlord insurances. The second one is on a steep block and the replacement value of the building was $300000 more than the whole house cost to buy so not sure how they come to that.

 

I do the same. I don't even let is lapse basically online system gives me new policy number each time for same product. Most my insurance is with AAMI and saves me minimum $25 per policy...

 

You can push back on construction costs - it's sort of like agreed value and market value for car insurance. As I know exactly how much mine cost as I built them I insure them for that much + clearing costs.

Does that total include landlords insurance too?

 

Might be worthwhile investigating rebuild costs and obtain insurance for a similar amount plus demolition costs etc. Insurance companies especially Suncorp like to provide quotes at the market value of house and land in my experience, meaning you end up paying far too much.

 

I'm a massive fan of CGU for both price & service.

You only find out how good your insurance is
at claim time, and from experience CGU have been excellent.

Allianz terrible at claim from experience also.

 

Try adelaide bank. They underwrite with cgu. And they gave me a $500 discount putting three policies with them. Were slightly more expensive then what i could get with suncorp and terri scheer, but with the $500 discount came in cheaper and a better contents policy for home insurance.

 

Here is a strategy, only buy places where agent says renovate or detonate