My insurance broker helped me save over $550 a year by switching my homeowners insurance

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• Homeowners insurance prices are rising, and I don't have the time to check every rate myself.
• That's why I get my insurance through an insurance broker and save hundreds easily.
• My insurance broker got all the paperwork I needed and made it easy to save money.

A recent survey from the National Association of Realtors found that the average homeowners insurance premium is $2,377 annually. However, the report states that the average homeowner will see this cost increase by 6% by the end of the year after seeing an average increase of 20% over the previous two years.

I live in Indiana, which is not known for high insurance prices. However, my insurance premiums were set to increase dramatically last year (more than $900) with my then-provider, Allstate . That led me to switch all of our family's insurance coverage (homeowners, auto, and umbrella) to Travelers Homeowners Insurance in August 2023.

Now that my insurance is renewing for another year, I'm going to have to do the same thing yet again. But I've learned the best way to save on all my insurance coverage each year — a move I'm making again for our insurance that spans August 2024 to August 2025. I'm saving money on my insurance by using a broker.

An insurance broker will save me money

While getting a third party involved in the process may sound like a hassle, trust me when I say it's not at all. The benefit of using an insurance broker is the fact they do all of the shopping around for you based on parameters you set.

For example, I wanted the exact same levels of coverage for homeowners, auto, and umbrella insurance (or better) as a condition of switching providers. I told our insurance broker that I wanted that right off the bat this year and last, and it was easy to share this information with them by forwarding them the policy declarations for the coverage we already had.

Last year, I saved over $900 by moving all our insurance from Allstate to Travelers. For this upcoming insurance year, however, our insurance broker told us we were getting the best possible deal on auto and umbrella coverage through Travelers with our renewal. We could save money on homeowners' insurance, but only if we switched to AAA Home Insurance . I also confirmed with our broker that my umbrella coverage would still apply if I moved my homeowners elsewhere.

I was still getting a decent deal on auto and umbrella coverage through Travelers. However, my premium would be $452 less if I moved our homeowners insurance coverage to AAA instead. The broker also sent along a summary of the included coverages we would get with AAA through the new policy, which were similar to what we already had in place.

I was fine with saving $452 on homeowners insurance, but I did not know that another discount applied if I paid for a year of coverage in cash. Since I pay property taxes and homeowners insurance out-of-pocket each year, I could qualify for this discount and line up a year's worth of homeowners coverage for $1,616. This represents an annual savings of $555 on homeowners insurance premiums instead.

I wouldn't be able to save this much money if I did it myself

While some of our other policies went up in price, I'm still happy with the savings we secured with our homeowners insurance policy, saving us money across all our policies for the upcoming year.

But this is only possible since we shopped around with a broker who took on the grunt work for us. The alternative to using a broker for insurance would have been shopping around for all the different coverage options on our own, which is something I would not have had the time or opportunity to do.

Our broker took care of all the paperwork, set up our payments, and sent us the documents we needed to sign to get coverage lined up. This personalized service saves me time and money, and you just can't get the same results getting quotes from individual insurance companies.

That's why I believe using an insurance broker is the best way to save on homeowners insurance and other insurance premiums. Not only do brokers offer their time, energy, and expertise, but you can benefit from their services for free.

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