Homeowner's insurance - deductible?

[mamica]

We just increased the deductible on our homeowner's insurance from $1000 to $5000, and I'm having buyer's remorse. We're trying to decrease our premium, and this helps a lot, but I'm wondering if we're being too risky. How much is your homeowner's deductible????

[BillK]

I have a $1000 deductible on mine and I have remorse over it. No way on earth I'd have a $5000 deductible unless I had so much money I didn't know what to do with it all. Everyone's situation is different - I have a couple folks insured with $10000 deductibles - but they have more money than God. If you can easily come up with $5k in the event of a claim then it's fine.

[niccig]

If you can easily come up with $5k in the event of a claim then it's fine.

I read in an article about car insurance that if you increase your deductible, save the difference in premiums until you get the deductible amount. Keep that money in an ING account or something similar as part of your emergency fund. So, if you do need it, it's there.

ETA In the short term this doesn't save you any money as you're paying the same amount, but it does in the long term. If it takes you 4 years to get the deductible amount, then there's another say 4 years before you make a claim, you've got the deductible money and 4 years of the premium difference as savings. I know we haven't made a claim on either our house or car insurance in over 6 years. But I can see it taking a while to get $5000. Going from $500 to $1000 wouldn't take as long.

Our home insurance deductible is $500, but it's coupled with our car insurance and that helped to lower it and the car insurance.

[KrisM]

We just increased the deductible on our homeowner's insurance from $1000 to $5000, and I'm having buyer's remorse. We're trying to decrease our premium, and this helps a lot, but I'm wondering if we're being too risky. How much is your homeowner's deductible????

Ours is $1000. How much, %tage wise, did the premium go down with the increase in deductible? Our insurances are up in August and I plan to call around this summer for quotes.

[JBaxter]

Ours is $500

[belovedgandp]

We're at $1000 - that made a big enough difference for us vs $500. We can easily cover what we have. Now you have me considering higher. I'm kind of paranoid, since I hear about rates going up or people being dropped for making claims. We're DIY type people and not likely to make a claim on things that maybe other people would.

[HannaAddict]

Don't feel remorse, if you can afford the $5,000. Homeowners insurance is really supposed to be for big things, not $500 items since you run a risk of being cancelled or your premiums increased big time. We have USAA (known as a great company) as do my in-laws, and they had one claim after never having a claim in 30+ years and got a big surprise. The claim was for over $1,000 but under $3,000 and they had a big premium increase and threat to cancel. If you can afford the $5,000, keep your premiums and savfe your claims for big ticket things. I'm always surprised at what people think they are going to make claims for (on this board and our local moms' board) when insurance companies are just looking for reasons to increase premiums. Homes are actually rates as well as individuals, meaning tracked, so it also matters how many claims previous residents had as well. Most of the "money" magazines for consumers advise having the highest deductible you can stomach and afford in the event of a catastrophic loss and suggest paying to replace broken windows, etc. out of pocket.

[GaPeach_in_Ca]

We're at $1000 - that made a big enough difference for us vs $500. We can easily cover what we have. Now you have me considering higher. I'm kind of paranoid, since I hear about rates going up or people being dropped for making claims. We're DIY type people and not likely to make a claim on things that maybe other people would.

I'm considering higher now, too! I should give my agent a call to see the difference in premium.

We do have more than that in cash savings, so it wouldn't give me any angst to have the higher deductible.

[hellokitty1]

Ours is $1000. How much, %tage wise, did the premium go down with the increase in deductible? Our insurances are up in August and I plan to call around this summer for quotes.

Just wanted to mention that last month, we changed our auto/home from State Farm to Erie and are saving $200 a year. I was with State Farm since I started driving at 16 and got a home policy with them when we bought our first home. I've only made one auto claim when i got in an accident on my 17th b-day. Our home policy had a $500 deductible and we made one claim back in 2001 when we were in LA for our 1 year anniversary. People tailed us from the rental agency and broke into the car and stole everything. a couple years later, they told us they were raising our deductible to $1000 and if we made anoither claim, they might not offer us insurance anymore. this "tightiening of the belt" was apparently due to 9/11 and katrina.

this really ticked me of but when i did shopping initially i couldn't find anything cheaper, even employee discounts. then i finally went to erie and they were much better and they forgive you on your first accident.

sorry to get OT but just wanted to mention this and that you don't have to wait til your current policy ends to switch.

[BillK]

Just wanted to mention that last month, we changed our auto/home from State Farm to Erie and are saving $200 a year.

I sure wish there were more people like you around here. I regularly quote folks that are with the "big" companies like State Farm, Erie, Nationwide etc and my savings are well over $500/year for 2 cars and a house (sometimes as much as $1000/year in savings) most times yet the people STILL don't want to leave the company they're currently with. It is frustrating beyond description.