Look out your car window and, sometimes, between the billboards, you can see a tree. In the good old days before we started covering the land with concrete, there used to be whole forests. Now the trees are gone and the ground is covered up, all we get are floods – the water can no longer soak into the ground and disappear. Of course, some of us keep trees as pets in our yards. We miss the old times and enjoy watching something big and green growing up into the sky. And yet. . . Have you ever wondered what holds the trees upright? Yes, these wonders of nature do grow up into the sky but, to ensure they don’t just fall over every time the wind blows, they develop big root systems. Many of these roots spread underneath our homes and can cause problems with the foundations. Some roots go the other way and produce that delightfully uneven sidewalk our old folk like to trip over when their eyesight’s not so good.

If the roots from one of your trees produces cracks in your neighbor’s home, or a stranger passing by falls over a cracked sidewalk, you can face a claim. This will usually be covered under the liability section of the policy. You can also face enforcement action from your local council. Local laws usually entitle the council to order you to remove “dangerous” trees and make good the sidewalk. If you refuse, the council can come on to your land, remove the tree and send you the bill. Whoever’s responsible for maintaining the road outside your home is likely to have similar powers. Completely removing a large tree can be an expensive business. Unfortunately, your insurance policy only covers you when your trees cause loss or damage to others. It does not pay out for preventive work to cut back the branches or roots. You get to pay the tree surgeon to do that out of your own savings.

There’s a reason why most sites like this talk about discounts as the best way of saving money. It happens to be true but, to take advantage of the discounts safely, you need to think carefully. Let’s start with the most commonly mentioned. All you have to do to make big savings is to increase your deductible. Indeed, the theory is often proved correct that an increase from $500 to $1000 can save you up to 25% of the annual premium. But there are two issues to think about.

Many insurance companies are already increasing the deductible whether you asked for it or not. The reason for this is the rise in the number of claims from bad weather. No matter what your view on global warming or climate change, the last two years have seen record-breaking claims for damage caused by snow, flooding, tornadoes and hurricanes. This year is ending on another unusual note with unexpected snowfall disrupting the northeast in late October, early November. The amount of snow and disruption to more than 2 million homes has broken new records for October for West Virginia through to Maine. All these additional claims mean premium rates will be going up again next year, and the deductibles are being adjusted on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. Don’t be caught out. Before you raise the deductible yourself, find out what your insurer has done. Second, if you do increase the deductible, can you afford to self-insure all the small accidental losses around the home? If not, resist rises in the deductible.

The problem with insurance is nothing in life is ever completely certain. One day the housing market can be rolling along, everyone certain prices can only ever go up. The next day, we’re pitched into a recession, major banks are in trouble and the housing market has collapsed. Because insurance is based on the concept of good faith, there’s supposed to be give and take on both sides of the relationship. An insurer cannot physically inspect every property it agrees to cover. To some extent, it must always rely on the honesty of the home owner to get proper estimates for the cost of rebuilding. After all, if the owner innocently underinsures, he or she will have to pay the additional costs out of savings. The insurer will not be at risk. If there was fraud, the insurer has the right to cancel the policy and avoid any payment. This protection for the insurer is fairly comprehensive. Hence, to offer better balance, most insurers offer guaranteed or extended replacement cover cover.

The point of this cover is simple. No matter how hard you try, no pre-estimate of the cost of rebuilding is ever absolute. It’s only when you get on the ground and start work you find out what all the problems are going to be. Costs have an unfortunate habit of rising and it’s relatively common for owners to have to sacrifice features of their old home to get the building work finished within budget. But, if you’re prepared to pay about 10% more on the premium rate, you can buy guaranteed cover, i.e. the insurer will pay the actual cost.

According to the Book of Common Prayer we often leave undone the things we ought to have done. It’s a fact of life. In many ways, we are our own worst enemies. Yet, for most everyday purposes, there are no penalties. We do the things we left undone when we have the time. We might never actually catch up with the backlog, but we keep moving forward. Except there are times when the failure produces instant consequences and, no matter how hard we try, it’s impossible to go back and put it right. Let’s be clear about this. The majority of traffic accidents could be avoided if everyone followed the rules of the road and kept a proper lookout. But we are easily distracted, multitasking when we should focus on the driving. This leaves the insurance companies with a bill and a problem.

In a no-fault state, it does not matter whether the insured driver or the others involved were negligent. The insurance company pays out regardless. But this only applies in twelve states. The remainder rely on the law of tort which order the party at fault to pay compensation to the other. So, if you were not at fault, your insurance company collects the compensation from the other driver and, in theory, suffers no loss. But if the other driver was not insured or underinsured, or you were at fault, your insurer now faces a loss. If this was just down to the math, the insurer would calculate a “fair” premium rate increase and slowly recover the loss. But if the insurer put up the rate every time one of its drivers was at fault, many of those drivers would move to a competing company. So the math has to bend to match social considerations. Sometimes, the insurers have to accept the loss.

Nobody gets something for nothing. The only way to get a benefit or save money is by investing effort. More often than not, this means a regular commitment to work. After all, we Americans hate scroungers, condemning the entitlement mentality, and promoting the idea we should all earn enough to pay our way through life. This applies just as much to insuring the vehicles we drive as to all other aspects of our lives. So let’s start with a dose of reality. It’s not often economically convenient to change the state in which we live. This is unfortunate because the average cost of a policy is $789. Actually, it’s probably higher than this but the most recent figure released by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners only comes up to 2008. Anyway, where you live can make a significant difference. The average rate in North Dakota was $500, whereas living in Florida will cost you more than $1,000. Then, depending on your personal characteristics and other factors like the make and model of the vehicle you have chosen to drive, you can find a difference of more than $1,000 in the actual premium rate you have to pay. Just as many are now looking carefully at the packages they buy on cable, this can make it worth your while to look carefully at your insurance policy.