INSURANCE
E C N A R U S SAVING ON IN
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s interest rate increases and inflation continue to threaten household incomes for most South Africans, Gari Dombo, MD of Alexander Forbes Insurance says, “It’s advisable to evaluate your insurance policy and make sure that you are only paying for insurance cover that you actually need.” Premiums are partially dependant on the assessment of a person’s risk factors so making simple changes now can give you immediate or long-term premium benefits, and sometimes both.
Car You can keep your car insurance premium down by driving a lower powered, lower value or lower risk vehicle, limiting your mileage, adjusting the annual depreciation value of your car, upgrading the security level of your vehicle such as installing a tracking 44
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device, attending an advanced driving course to improve your chances of a low accident driving record, increasing your excess voluntarily and insuring your vehicle for named drivers only. Look at the cover extensions that are charged for and decide if you really need them. For example if you have more than one vehicle in the household, do you really need Car Hire cover? Do you need Car Hire cover on all of the vehicles?
Household On your contents cover, you may decide that certain items would not be replaced, like that old grandfather clock or sentimental piece of jewellery. These you could negotiate with your insurer to have deleted (or excluded) from cover. Every year, it is important to re-evaluate insured items to decide if the possibility or severity of a risk makes the item worth insuring. Should you consider reducing your cover or self-insuring,
then Dombo suggests that you put the premium saving away each month to provide for the extra risk that you are now taking on yourself. If the loss does not happen in time you will have built up a fund to use at your discretion.
Business Review your business insurance regularly to identify those items less important to you and ensure that you have not duplicated cover or have unnecessary coverage. Talk to your insurance broker to determine what you can do to lower your business insurance cost. Examples would be installing a security system or fire prevention system or changing locations and getting an inspection done. Dombo stresses the importance of obtaining the maximum value from your insurance cover by only paying for the cover that you need. This will match your cover to risk and help improve your risk profile.
