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" Do you wish you could squeeze extra savings from your budget \u2014 without making any big sacrifices? Here&amp;#039;s an idea you may not have thought of: Slash the premiums you pay to insure your car and home. Rates have risen so sharply in recent years that it may seem impossible to cut these back. But there are many ways.  Your Auto Insurance Consider canceling collision insurance (for damage) and comprehensive insurance (for theft) if your car is older. Your insurer will never pay more than the vehicle&amp;#039;s current resale value, which may be low for a car that&amp;#039;s been around. Ask your agent what you&amp;#039;re paying for collision and &amp;quot;comp&amp;quot; and compare it with what your car is worth right now. You can find out by checking the Kelley Blue Book site (kbb.com). Cancel the coverage if it&amp;#039;s costing you more than the insurer would pay to repair or replace your car.  Raise the deductible. That&amp;#039;s the amount you pay out-of-pocket before your collision or comprehensive riders kick in. The cost of those riders drops as much as 25 percent if you agree to pick up the first $1,000 in claims rather than just the first $500. Accept a $2,500 deductible and your savings could reach 40 percent. You shouldn&amp;#039;t be filing $500 claims, anyway \u2014 insurers don&amp;#039;t like clients who turn to them for every little thing. They&amp;#039;ll raise your rates and may even cancel your coverage. Unfair? Absolutely, but that&amp;#039;s the fact.  Get several rate quotes before you buy or renew a policy. Average premiums are actually expected to drop 0.5 percent this year. Some insurers are cutting prices more \u2014 as much as 6 to 12 percent. To find a lower-cost policy, start with the Web (see the next page for ). Once you have prices, call an independent agent \u2014 one who represents several companies \u2014 to see if he or she can beat the quotes.  Take advantage of every discount insurers offer. They&amp;#039;re usually available to people who drive less often than average (fewer than about 12,000 miles a year), older drivers (typically 55+), graduates of driver-training or defensive-driving courses, students with good grades (B-average or better), and owners of cars with safety features such as antilock brakes. Geico often lowers rates up to 15 percent for active and retired military members. You may also get a discount if the same company insures your car and house (though you&amp;#039;ll save only if the company is low cost to begin with).  Drive safely and keep a good credit rating. Speeding tickets, fender benders, and failing to pay your credit card bills will raise your rates. (Poor-credit risks are poor-driving risks, insurers say.)  Tell your insurance agent if your teen moves out or goes away to school. You&amp;#039;ll pay less if he is no longer driving your car regularly.  Switch to a safer car. Insurers charge less for autos that perform better in crash tests than comparable, riskier models. For crash-test ratings, see iihs.org and safercar.gov.  Don&amp;#039;t scrimp on liability coverage. This is the coverage that kicks in if you injure someone in an automobile accident. The state requires that you buy a certain minimum amount, but that&amp;#039;s never enough for people with assets to protect. The policy should be large enough to cover the value of your home, your investments, and some of your future earning power, so a big court judgment wouldn&amp;#039;t end up crippling you for life.  Homeowners&amp;#039; Insurance Shop around. While automobile insurance rates are expected to go down this year, homeowner policies will likely go up (by about 4 percent). So it pays to hunt for the best price. The same Websites that quote car insurance rates will also give you the cost of homeowners&amp;#039; coverage.  Ask about discounts. Many insurers cut rates by about 5 percent if the homeowner has burglar alarms, smoke detectors, or dead bolt locks. Some give breaks to older people and to families in which no one smokes.  Don&amp;#039;t overinsure. If you bought enough coverage to equal the price you paid for the house, you may have too much insurance. That&amp;#039;s because your purchase price included the cost of the land, but even if your house burns down, you don&amp;#039;t need to buy the land again. So shrink your policy to the right amount: what it would cost to rebuild your home. You can also cut costs by dropping coverage you bought for jewelry or other valuables that have decreased in value.  But don&amp;#039;t underinsure. Building costs have soared in the past few years. If you haven&amp;#039;t increased the size of your policy, you may not be able to replace your house if you&amp;#039;re hit by a tragic fire, hurricane, or flood. Ask your agent how much coverage you need today. To hold down your cost, increase the deductible. If you offer to pay up to $1,000 out-of-pocket for a claim, instead of $250, you can save as much as 24 percent.  Choose your next home wisely. It is lovely to live near the ocean, but that&amp;#039;s where insurance costs the most. In hurricane zones, average premiums will soar 20 to 100 percent this year, reports the Insurance Information Institute. And it&amp;#039;s going to get worse. Many insurers aren&amp;#039;t renewing policies for homes on the coasts. Florida now has &amp;quot;insurance refugees&amp;quot; \u2014 people who can&amp;#039;t afford coastal coverage and are moving inland to higher ground. No question about it: Ocean views are going to carry a heavy price. Want the Best Deal? Price-Shop Online Use all or some of these Websites to collect cost information on the kind of auto and homeowners&amp;#039; coverage you want. Then ask an insurance agent to beat the best rate you find.  Price comparison insweb.com, netquote.com Major insurers  allstate.com, nationwide.com, statefarm.com, geico.com, progressive.com How I Saved a Bundle on My Car Insurance When our 16-year-old daughter, Kathryn, got her license last year, my husband and I realized that we were paying premiums on four vehicles for four drivers (ourselves, Kathryn, and our 18-year-old son, Adam) \u2014 for a whopping total of more than $8,000. We were already saving some money because the same insurer \u2014 State Farm \u2014 covers all of our cars and our homeowners&amp;#039; policy. Also, none of us have ever had accidents or speeding violations, and the kids get good grades. But there had to be a way for us to pay less, and I was determined to find it I got on the phone with our insurance agent and went through every line of the policy, asking what each item meant. Once I understood, I eliminated anything we didn&amp;#039;t need. I dropped my roadside assistance because I was enrolled in a similar program with my cell phone provider. In addition, it turned out that my family and I were eligible for another discount since the kids had taken a safe-driving course. Because I asked all the right questions and streamlined our coverage, we saved about $100 a month \u2014 which adds up to over $1,000 a year. \u2014Bonnie Gibbs  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/money/advice/a17302/insurance-savings-may07/>