6. Buying unnecessary insurance policies
You wouldn’t take out a homeowners insurance policy if you didn’t have a house, nor would you buy auto insurance if you didn’t own a vehicle. But you might make some of the following insurance blunders:
Buying unnecessary life insurance coverage. Most people don’t need life insurance on their kids, says Hunter. While the death of a child is tragic, financially it’s not as detrimental as a breadwinner passing away. It makes sense to have life insurance on yourself if you have dependents, but if you’re childless and single, you don’t need it, either.
Buying specialized insurance. Be wary of purchasing too-specific variants of broader types of insurance. You may need life insurance, but you shouldn’t buy it at the car dealership, Hunter says. He offers this rule of thumb: “Don’t buy insurance from somebody you went to buy something else from.”
The same goes for dread-disease policies. “Specific illness insurance like cancer coverage . . . I’d read the fine print there, carefully, because you may just be paying double,” says Praeger, who also serves as president-elect of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. If you’re insured through a major medical policy, you may not receive additional benefits from these types of extra coverage, she adds.
If you’re worried about identity theft, don’t rush out to buy identity-theft insurance. “I think there’s a lot of discussion and concern about identity theft today, and I think people prey on that concern by offering something that you may already have coverage for,” Praeger says. Check your homeowners policy. It might already include some identity-theft protection, Praeger says. Credit cards also offer some protection against unauthorized charges.
7. Not updating your coverage
Evaluate your coverage whenever you go through a life change, such as birth, adoption, marriage or divorce, but at least once annually.
“If your home has gone up in value, make sure you increase your policy limits,” says Praeger. “If you have a replacement cost, your replacement cost ought to be about 80% of the value of your home. So, if you’ve made a room addition, make sure you increase accordingly.”
“For a health insurance review each year, if you’re a dual-income family and your spouse has coverage, look at both policies and decide if it’s more cost-effective for you to be covered under one or if it still works best to be covered under each individual policy,” she says.