Right now, there are hundreds of companies throughout Canada competing for your insurance business. That gives you a lot of choice. You should care if your insurance company is profitable, because healthy and profitable companies give you a wide range of choice. If a company wasn’t profitable, it wouldn’t choose to stay in business very long. Conceivably, there could be fewer insurance companies from which to choose. With less competition, the remaining insurance companies would have less incentive to provide a competitively priced insurance product.
What you can do to help control your insurance premiums
While insurance companies are committed to keeping insurance affordable for everyone, there are some steps you can take to help.
To control your car insurance costs, talk to your insurance broker or agent about:
raising your deductible
dropping collision coverage on an older car
accepting package deals offered by insurance companies for insuring your car and home or more than one car with the same company
installing an approved theft deterrent system in your vehicle
To keep down your home insurance costs, you may want to consider:
raising your deductible
maintaining your home in good condition, because “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”
installing a monitored burglar alarm and a sprinkler system
insuring your home with the same insurance company that insures your car
**This is an excerpt from a pamphlet produced by the Insurance Bureau of Canada (November 2001) entitled “What’s up with insurance premiums?”
