# I Just Saved $76 on my House Insurance **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 30, 2008, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-saved-76-on-my-house-insurance/465797 "2008-09-30T02:39:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-saved-76-on-my-house-insurance/465797/1 "2008-09-30T02:39:08Z")
My wife freaked out when our insurance agent called for us to renew and told her that we don’t have earthquake insurance. So I go in to see the agent to negotiate the earthquake insurance. With my regular policy having gone up as well (as it does every year), I ask " Is there any way we can cut the premium down ?." Before the earthquake insurance, the new annual premium was $510. Well it turns out that if we raise the **standard** $500 deductible to $1000 I will save $76 on my premium. Whaaaaat??? I’ve been paying $76 annually for 29 years to save $500 in case of a catastrophe? What a ripoff ! Oh well. It was a good thing my wife made me get that earthquake insurance. I thought maybe some of you might want to check this out for yourselves. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-saved-76-on-my-house-insurance/465797/2 "2008-09-30T02:59:17Z")
> [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](#): > > My wife freaked out when our insurance agent called for us to renew and told her that we don’t have earthquake insurance. So I go in to see the agent to negotiate the earthquake insurance. > With my regular policy having gone up as well (as it does every year), I ask " Is there any way we can cut the premium down ?." Before the earthquake insurance, the new annual premium was $510. > > Well it turns out that if we raise the **standard** $500 deductible to $1000 I will save $76 on my premium. > > Whaaaaat??? I’ve been paying $76 annually for 29 years to save $500 in case of a catastrophe? What a ripoff ! Oh well. It was a good thing my wife made me get that earthquake insurance. > > I thought maybe some of you might want to check this out for yourselves. Thank you, I will look into my deductible. BTW, I do have earthquake insurance; it cost less than a cup of coffee to go a day. ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-saved-76-on-my-house-insurance/465797/3 "2008-09-30T03:33:10Z")
This also applies to car insurance. Raising your deductible can save you a bunch of bucks. A $1,000 deductible is often less than 1/2 the annual premium of a $100 deductible. So all you dopers out there, check your deductibles on your auto insurance. Send one-half of the savings to me. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-saved-76-on-my-house-insurance/465797/4 "2008-09-30T06:23:30Z")
Be aware that some lenders will impose maximum deductibles - on car loans, a $500 deductible is a common limit. I don’t think there’s usually any such restrictions on homeowner’s insurance. ---
**Author:** ![MsRobyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90ced4/32.png) [@MsRobyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsRobyn)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-saved-76-on-my-house-insurance/465797/5 "2008-09-30T10:55:05Z")
> [@Rick](#): > > This also applies to car insurance. Raising your deductible can save you a bunch of bucks. > A $1,000 deductible is often less than 1/2 the annual premium of a $100 deductible. > So all you dopers out there, check your deductibles on your auto insurance. Send one-half of the savings to me. 😃 It’s actually a trade-off. You’d save bux on the premiums every month but if you needed to file a claim, you may be hard-pressed to come up with the deductible. Most of the time, I recommend $500. It’s a good happy medium between affordability of premiums and affordability of deductibles. Of course, if you own your car outright and it’s a pretty old one anyway, you may want to drop comp and collision and just stick to liability. Robin ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-saved-76-on-my-house-insurance/465797/6 "2008-09-30T12:05:31Z")
I’m with the OP on homeowner’s deductible. $500 is just too expensive and it practically begs you to file piddly claims that will get your policy yanked out from under you. Go much (any) higher than $1,000 though and the savings is usually negligible. My take on car insurance is a bit different. If I had to I doubt I could shit $500 to get my car fixed unexpectedly. $250 would hurt, but I could probably do it. I can budget for the monthly cost of the insurance, but I smply can’t be relied on to raise my deductible and keep the difference in a savings account until I need it. Since we’re talking insurance, check out the costs of liability insurance. Anything less than 50/100/50 is silly risky, higher limits than that are stunningly cost-effective. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-saved-76-on-my-house-insurance/465797/7 "2008-09-30T12:14:29Z")
> [@MsRobyn](#): > > It’s actually a trade-off. You’d save bux on the premiums every month but if you needed to file a claim, you may be hard-pressed to come up with the deductible. Most of the time, I recommend $500. My current insurance agent recommends setting your deuctibles to the maximum your could come up with “RIGHT NOW!!” if you had to. Since I have two credit cards with pretty high limits (12K and 18K) and low balances, I usually set my deductibles to $1000.