40+ Home Insurance Savings Tips

Your dwelling is often your most precious asset that you need to protect. We created a list of all savings opportunities associated with Home insurance. This list is the most complete perspective on home insurance savings tips. Numerous insurance brokers contributed to this list. So, let’s start!1. Change your content coverage: Renting a Condo? You can often lower your content coverage. No need to insure your belongings to up to $250,000 if you only have a laptop and some IKEA furniture!2. Renovations: Renovating your house can result in lower home insurance premiums, as home insurance premiums for older, poorly maintained dwellings are usually higher. Additionally, renovating only parts of your dwelling (e.g. the roof) can lead to insurance savings.3. Pool: Adding a swimming pool to your house will likely lead to an increase in your insurance rates since your liability ( e.g. the risk of someone drowning) and the value of your house have increased.4. Pipes: Insurers prefer copper or plastic plumbing – maybe it is a good idea to upgrade your galvanized / lead pipes during your next renovation cycle.5. Shop around: Search, Compare, and switch insurance companies. There are many insurance providers and their price offerings for the same policies can be very different, therefore use multiple online tools and talk to several brokers since each will cover a limited number of insurance companies.6. Wiring: Some wiring types are more expensive or cheaper than others to insure. Make sure you have approved wiring types, and by all means avoid aluminum wirings which can be really expensive to insure. Not all insurers will cover houses with aluminum wirings, and those that would, will require a full electrical inspection of the house.7. Home Insurance deductibles: Like auto insurance, you can also choose higher home insurance deductibles to reduce your insurance premiums.8. Bundle: Do you need Home and Auto Insurance? Most companies will offer you a discount if you bundle them together.9. New Home: Check if insurer has a new home discount, some insurers will have them.10. Claims-free discount: Some companies recognize the fact that you have not submitted any claims and reward it with a claim-free discount.11. Mortgage-free home: When you complete paying down your house in full, some insurers will reward you with lower premiums.12. Professional Membership: Are you a member of a professional organization (e.g. Certified Management Accountants of Canada or The Air Canada Pilots Association)? Then some insurance companies offer you a discount.13. Seniors: Many companies offer special pricing to seniors.14. Annual vs. monthly payments: In comparison to monthly payments, annual payments save insurers administrative costs (e.g. sending bills) and therefore they reward you lower premiums.15. Annual review: Review your policies and coverage every year, since new discounts could apply to your new life situation if it has changed.16. Alumni: Graduates from certain Canadian universities ( e.g University of Toronto, McGill University) might be eligible for a discount at certain Insurance providers.17. Employee / Union members: Some companies offer discounts to union members ( e.g. IBM Canada or Research in Motion)18. Mortgage insurance: Getting mortgage insurance when you have enough coverage in Life insurance is not always necessary: mortgage insurance is another name for a Life/Critical Illness / Disability insurance associated with your home only but you pay extra for a convenience of getting insurance directly when lending the money. For example a Term Life policy large enough to pay off your home is usually cheaper.19. Drop earthquake protection: In many regions, earthquakes are not likely – you could decide not to take earthquake coverage which could lower your premiums. For example, in BC earthquake coverage can account for as much as one-third of a policy’s premium.20. Wood stove: Choosing to use a wood stove means higher premiums – Insurance companies often decide to inspect the houses with such installations before insuring them. A decision to get rid of it means a lower risk and thus lower insurance premiums.21. Heating: Insurers like forced-air gas furnaces or electric heat installations. If you have an oil-heated home, you might be paying more than your peers who have alternative heating sources.22. Bicycle: You are buying a new bicycle and thinking about getting extra protection in case it is stolen when you leave it on the street e.g. when doing your groceries? Your Home insurance might be covering it already.23. Stop smoking: Some insurers increase their premiums for the homes with smokers as there is an increased risk of fire.24. Clean claim history: Keep a clean claim record without placing small claims, sometimes it makes sense to simply repair a small damage rather than claim it: you should consider both aspects: your deductibles and potential raise in premiums.25. Rebuilding vs. market costs: Consider your rebuilding costs when choosing an insurance coverage, not the market price of your house (market price can be significantly higher than real rebuilding costs).26. Welcome discount: Some insurers offer a so called welcome discount.27. Avoid living in dangerous locations: Nature effects some locations more than others: avoid flood-, or earthquake-endangered areas when choosing a house.28. Neighbourhood: Moving to a more secure neighbourhood with lower criminal rate will often considered in your insurance premiums.29. Centrally-connected alarm: Installing an alarm connected to a central monitoring system will be recognized by some insurers in premiums.30. Monitoring: Having your residence / apartment / condo monitored 24 hour can mean an insurance discount. e.g. via a security guard.31. Hydrants and fire-station: Proximity to a water hydrant and/or fire-station can decrease your premiums as well.32. Loyalty: Staying with one insurer longer can sometimes result in a long-term policy holder discount.33. Water damages: Avoid buying a house which may have water damage or has a history of water damage; a check with the insurance company can help to find it out before you buy the house.34. Decrease liability risk: Use meaningful ways to reduce your liability risk (e.g. fencing off a pool) and it can result in your liability insurance premiums going down.35. Direct insurers: Have you always dealt with insurance brokers / agents? Getting a policy from a direct insurer (i.e. insurers working via call-center or online) often can be cheaper (but not always) since they do not pay an agent/broker commission for each policy sold.36. Plumbing insulation: Insulating your pipes will prevent them from freezing in winter and reduce or even avoid insurance claims.37. Dependent students: Dependent students living in their own apartment can be covered by their parents’ home insurance policy at no additional charge.38. Retirees: Those who are retired can often get an additional discount – since they spend more time at home than somebody who works during the day and thus can prevent accidents like a fire much easier.39. Leverage inflation: Many insurers increase your dwelling limit every year by considering the inflation of the house rebuilding costs. Make sure this adjustment is in line with reality and that you are not overpaying.40. Credit score: Most companies use your credit score when calculating home insurance premiums. Having a good credit score can help you to get lower insurance rates.41. Stability of residence: Some insurers may offer a stability of residence discount if you have lived at the same dwelling for a certain number of years.

What Is Management Training?

It’s amazing to think that anybody would even need to ask the question “what is management training?”, but management is a term that gets bandied around so much that it can be easy to forget its true purpose and why on-going training is important for all and any managers in the present day.So what is management training? Put simply, it is the method of improving the skills and development of people in management and leadership roles. With management training, a manager or leader within a company should be able to make better decisions and work more effectively.Why is management training important?On-going management training is important because effective management is crucial for businesses. If an employee makes a mistake, it might be a small thing that can be rectified. However, if a manager makes a mistake, it could affect all of the employees working under him/her, which could create a greater ripple effect than the employee’s mistake, and cause more damage to the company, both in the short- and long-term.It is important that businesses invest in training for their managers on a regular basis, not just as a one-off exercise. In theory, the more training a manager receives, the better chance they have in making well-informed, confident decisions that will help a business to power through both the good and bad times. Also, they may have a competitive advantage over other businesses working in the same industry who offer the same kinds of products and services, especially if those other companies do not make the effort to invest in management and leadership training.How can management training help?Management training can help in a number of ways, including:

Time management: Helping a manager handle their time better, allowing them more time to make decisions and to concentrate on the more important factors affecting the business and their work.
People management: Helping a manager to decide how best to delegate workloads, so that the right people with the right skills are working on the right projects and getting the best results in their work.
Resource management: Helping a manager to decide how to best use a company’s resources, whether it’s people (see above), financial, goods, equipment or the help of another department within the company (e.g. IT).Management training is sometimes tailored specifically to a manager or type of manager. For example, the skills that a CEO or Director requires may be vastly different to that of a middle manager or team leader, however many of the principles will still be the same.

Top 3 Questions CEOs Should Ask Marketing Leaders

Driving increased revenue and market share requires a comprehensive knowledge of your customer along with aa commitment to the customer experience. CEOs should be an advocate for improving customer experience (CX) that drives successful B2B customer acquisition. Specifically, when talking to marketing leaders about B2B marketing strategies, CEOs should be asking these tough questions to ensure that CX is central to the marketing strategy:HAVE YOU IDENTIFIED TARGET PERSONAS IN YOUR B2B MARKETING STRATEGY?Going through the exercise to develop personas based on market and customer research is fundamental to understanding your target customer. Additionally, personas help marketing teams engage these customers in the buyer journey based on motivators and detractors. For example, persona-based web experiences are 2 to 5 times more effective. Yet, only 44% of B2B marketers use personas as a part of their B2B marketing strategy. CEOs focused on successful customer acquisition should expect personas are incorporated into the marketing touchpoints along the buyer journey.HAVE YOU MAPPED A PERSONA-BASED CUSTOMER JOURNEY TO SUPPORT B2B CUSTOMER ACQUISITION?Once personas are developed, marketing should create persona-based experiences that move target customers forward in their journey to purchase your B2B organization’s product or service. B2B marketing strategies should play into each customer touchpoint along the buyer journey. To create inspired customer experiences that contribute to increase revenue and return on marketing program investment, marketing leaders must focus on the touchpoints that move the buyer forward. CEOs should be asking hard-hitting questions to ensure marketing’s focus is aligned with B2B customer acquisition.HOW DO YOU DEFINE AND MEASURE THE SUCCESS OF YOUR B2B MARKETING STRATEGY?Supporting the successful execution of an organization-wide customer experience initiative should be a B2B marketing strategy that has clear goals and metrics. Your marketing leadership should outline how their B2B marketing programs create direct contribution to revenue and fuel high growth. CEOs should expect marketing to provide the customer experience metrics that show direct contribution to B2B customer acquisition.NEXT STEPSA customer-centric organization is critical for B2B customer acquisition. This customer centricity should start at the top with CEOs advocating for customer experience initiatives. CEOs should be asking their marketing leadership the hard questions to ensure customer experience is embedded in marketing programs and support driving customer acquisition. Inquiring about personas, customer journeys and success metrics should help CEOs gauge marketing’s alignment with the organization’s revenue and growth goals.Finding a demand generation agency that partners with CEOs and marketing leaders to embrace customer experiences that fuel high growth and increase market share is very important!