The Importance House Insurance

I was watching the news yesterday when a story came on about a house fire where the folks lost everything.  The good thing was no one was hurt but they did lose everything.  Apparently they had lived in the house for a little over 30 years and had no household insurance.  Now this just boggles my mind!  How can you own a house and live in it for that many years without having household insurance? 

We pay about $660 per year for full household insurance coverage.  There are some things that regardless of the amount of insurance can't be replaced but that $660 provides a lot of replacement coverage from clothes to lost food to furniture and appliances.  If you take a walk through your home and document just how much it would cost to replace what you have in there it quickly becomes apparent that $660 is an excellent price for the security of knowing even if we lost everything we would not lose out of pocket replacement costs.  We would not have to rely on the generosity of others to help us rebuild our lives.  So it is a nice piece of low cost security.

Think of household insurance as a must have, necessary cost of living.  Those who are renting should look for a reasonably priced tenants' insurance package.  This will cover the replacement costs of your possessions for $200 or less per year.   If affording household insurance is a problem there are so many ways to cut back in other ways so you can afford the necessary protection.  Basically at the cost of our household insurance we would need to cut $55 in expenses monthly to afford it.  Surprisingly saving $55 just in food costs per month is not as difficult as it sounds.   Taking an eco-friendly, garbage free lunch to work instead of grabbing a fast food sandwich daily ($5, 20 days per week) can save you $100 less the cost of food for the lunches that would leave you a net of about $70 in saving.   If a couple spends $40 every two weeks to eat out they can eliminate that to save $1,040 per year that pays for their household insurance and still gives them a bit extra to pad the bank account.  Now that is just looking at savings to be had that are food related.  If you apply this to the rest of your living expenses not only will you be saving money but the material possessions including your home will be protected in the event of a disaster. 

Garden Gnome
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