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Never, never just accept a renewal quote from your insurance company on your Home and Car Insurance policies. After mortgages, this is the easiest area to limit your spending by finding alternative quotes. According to the RAC, shopping around can save the average buyer £214, while home insurance tumbles from £368 to £227. It is so easy to get quotes on the internet, and if you don’t spend at least one lunch hour a year finding a better deal then saving money is not important.

1. Investigate your Loan protection insurance
Too expensive and agressively sold, payment protection insurance is one of the most profitable products created by the finance industry. It can add £3,000 to the cost of a £7,500 secured loans. But many people were sold it who can’t possibly make a claim against it these people are able to claim their ppi back.

Many companies will attempt to claim the money back, but you will pay a 25% premium on the monies awarded. Instead, call the FOS which is currently upholding around four out of five complaints about being missold PP . Helpfully, it offers a factsheet on how to make a complaint about PPI which you can find at financialombudsman.org.uk

2. Cancel your mobile phone insurance
It is common for people to be are strongly pressured in phone shops into spending between £60 and £70 a year on this cover. Most policies don’t cover you for the most dangerous type of risk airtime abuse (if your phone is ued to call overseas, and you can claim for a lost phone on you contents cover.

Mobile insurance is usually set up as a monthly direct debit, so it’s a very easy one to cancel.

3. Rethink your life insurance
You can also cancel your life insurance. Just because the life cover was sold to you when you took out a mortgage doesn’t mean you have to stick with that provider for the life of the mortgage. You can cancel it at any time to get your cover even cheaper. With the avergae age of death improving (ie. fewer people dying), the insurance companies have been lowering the cost of life insurance for years.

If you are in a job at a big employer, it is likely to offer death in service benefit worth at least three times your yearly salary, and often much more. Do you really need all that life insurance cover on top as well?

4. Don’t pay for travel insurance you don’t need
Step 1 An EHIC card provides free or reduced cost treatment in EU countries

Step 2 Check your home insurance policy. Many have clauses which already cover personal belongings (ie. your suitcase) outside the home.

Step 3 Check your private medical insurance policy, if you have one. These usually pay treatment costs incurred abroad. For most holidaymakers, who travel to southern Europe once a year, the only real benefit that travel insurance cover brings is cover in the event of a cancellation. Ask yourself if that is really worth premiums that are often pounds 100 or more for a family.

You mustn’t travel outside the EU with out travel insurance cover If you go away more than once a year it is best to take a annual policy though again don’t pay for cover you don’t need. For example, cover for winter sports.