# Want to lower high deductible on homeowners insurance for a long trip...suspicious?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/want-to-lower-high-deductible-on-homeowners-insurance-for-a-long-trip-suspicious/784750>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [April 18, 2017, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/want-to-lower-high-deductible-on-homeowners-insurance-for-a-long-trip-suspicious/784750 "2017-04-18T23:42:33Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Renee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/renee/32/287_2.png) [@Renee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Renee)\
**Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/want-to-lower-high-deductible-on-homeowners-insurance-for-a-long-trip-suspicious/784750/21 "2017-04-19T20:42:35Z")

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What Angel soft said. The only police out here are the highway department, and they wouldn’t be able to see the house without driving down our 1/4 mile gravel driveway. When you live out here, you are responsible for your own home security, which works great when you’re home 🙂

This actually has been helpful (especially the info about it being hard to reduce deductibles.) I think we’re just going to move our most expensive tools to friend’s houses, and hope for the best .

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**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\
**Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/want-to-lower-high-deductible-on-homeowners-insurance-for-a-long-trip-suspicious/784750/22 "2017-04-19T22:10:54Z")

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> [@Dewey\_Finn](#):
>
> And I don’t see how paying for a higher deductible will offset any change in risk.

> [@Sandra\_Battye](#):
>
> I’m also unsure how lowering the deductibles would lower the risk.

This seems pretty basic to me.

If his deductible is currently $5000 and he lowers it to $1000, he’s lowered his exposure to risk by $4000.

If he is correct that the risk of loss is higher while he’s away, this might be a good decision.

Insurance companies certainly have an incentive to not let you make changes like this without cost. Exactly what their models are and how they interact with the regulation in your state makes it hard to know how attempting to do this would end up.

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**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\
**Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/want-to-lower-high-deductible-on-homeowners-insurance-for-a-long-trip-suspicious/784750/23 "2017-04-19T22:27:37Z")

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Presumably lowering the deductible will raise the premiums, though.

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**Author:** ![Renee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/renee/32/287_2.png) [@Renee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Renee)\
**Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/want-to-lower-high-deductible-on-homeowners-insurance-for-a-long-trip-suspicious/784750/24 "2017-04-19T22:37:03Z")

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But only by, maybe a hundred dollars or so.

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**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\
**Post date:** [April 20, 2017, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/want-to-lower-high-deductible-on-homeowners-insurance-for-a-long-trip-suspicious/784750/25 "2017-04-20T18:15:41Z")

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> [@Dewey\_Finn](#):
>
> Presumably lowering the deductible will raise the premiums, though.

Sure. But it still limits risk.

I mean, having insurance at all raises your premiums (over the $0 that no insurance costs). But would anyone say “I don’t see how having insurance limits your risk.” because you have to pay premiums for it?

The whole point of insurance is to pay a known fixed cost to limit downside risk. Lowering your deductible is paying a higher known fixed cost to further limit downside risk: essentially just buying more insurance.

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