There are many companies that provide insurance and most of us will use one of them to buy insurance as most people have some sort of insurance cover. Insurance can be expensive though and so we may wish that we could pay less. It could also be quite a significant chunk of our outgoings. We may therefore consider whether it might be a good idea to move to a cheaper insurer to try to save some money. However, many people do worry about this because they wonder whether they should trust a different insurer to the one that they normally use. They may worry that this is a risk though and so may wonder whether if it is worth doing, so it is worth giving it some thought.
What are the risks?
There are a few risks that you could take when you switch insurers. The first is that you will not be getting such good value for money. If you pay less money then the service you get may not be so good. It could be the case that you will not have so much cover as you did with your previous insurer. This means that if you do make a claim, then you may not be covered. You may also find that the customer service is not as good and so if you need to get in touch with them, you may not get such a speedy, polite or efficient response. Therefore, this could worry you and make you feel like you want to stick with the company that you are with.
Is it worth the risk?
You will need to decide whether you think that it is worth saving the money and taking this risk. You can reduce the risk by doing some research about the different insurers first. You will find that there are some websites which have information about how good the customer service is of various insurers (moneysavingexpert.com is a good place to start). This will allow you to decide whether you think that you are confident enough to swap to a different provider. It is also worth bearing in mind that you will normally sign up for a year, if you are not happy in that year you can switch to another. Of course, the main risk is that if you need to make a claim in that year and you have difficulty getting the money, then you could struggle with this. However, most people, fortunately, do not have to make claims and only take out insurance for peace of mind and therefore do not make claims anyway.
Are they Alternative Ways to Save?
It is worth thinking about whether there are any other ways that you can save money as well as switching insurer. Firstly, when your renewal comes, make sure that you get in touch with your insurer and see whether they will reduce the amount that they are charging. Often, they will just reduce it and sometimes by quite a significant amount of money. Also try to keep your claims down to a minimum as the more claims you make, the higher a risk you are to insure and the higher your premiums will be. It is also good to check your policy to make sure that you are not paying for more cover than you need. Sometimes there are optional parts that you can leave out and if you do this then the premium will be cheaper. Of course, you will need to think hard about whether this is something that you feel is important or not, to keep in the policy.
