If you have a mortgage on your home, which means you pay a mortgage payment every month, your mortgage holder will require you to have homeowner's insurance. But did you know that you don't have to buy any specific kind of homeowner's insurance? In other words, your lender can't tell you which insurance company you have to buy a policy from or what policy you have to buy.
And since you can buy homeowner's insurance from any company you want, you can shop online to find the best rates on homeowner's insurance in New Hampshire.
But before we do that, let's talk about a few easy things you can do to get your monthly premium as low as it can go.
Don't try to save money by not getting enough home insurance. If your house is destroyed, your insurance should cover enough to rebuild it from the ground up in today's money. That means you might need to talk to a contractor or, at the very least, an experienced real estate agent to find out how much your home would really cost to replace.
Insure your home and its belongings for what they would really cost to replace today, but don't include the value of the land where your home is built. You don't have to insure the land itself, just what's on it.
A big part of your premium is based on how likely it is that your home will catch on fire or be broken into. So, if you take a few simple steps to make your home less of a target for burglars and less likely to catch fire, your monthly homeowner's insurance premium will be much lower to reflect that.
Start by getting all of the brush, weeds, and trash away from your buildings. Clear a space at least 10 feet away from any building.
Add a few motion-sensor lights to your home and cut back any bushes near doors or windows that a thief could hide in.
All exterior doors must have a deadbolt that works, and all windows, no matter what floor they are on, must have a lock that works.
The smoke and fire detectors must be set up according to the instructions from the manufacturer, and each one must have a battery that works. Every time you move your clocks ahead or back an hour, you should change the batteries.
Your kitchen needs the right kind of fire extinguisher for a kitchen.
If you can afford it, a security system that is connected to a third party and watches your home for fires and burglaries all day and night can lower your homeowner's insurance by up to 30%, and the savings you get each month can go a long way toward paying for your new peace of mind.
Now, it's time to go online and find at least two websites that will let you compare homeowner's insurance and prices from different insurance companies side by side. By doing this, you can be sure that you got the best deal on homeowner's insurance in the state of New Hampshire.
