30 Bad (and Expensive!) Insurance Habits
The Californer/10315697

LOS ANGELES - Californer -- Please follow the link at the end for the full list of 30 common habits that increase payments.

1. Late Insurance Payments
It's a vicious cycle if you're low on cash, so avoid late insurance payments at all costs. If you skip just one, it hurts your credit score and you will pay more in insurance premiums due to a poor insurance score. Worse yet, your policy may get canceled and a lapse in insurance raises premiums significantly. Do this enough times and you may have a hard time getting insured.

2. Lapses in Coverage
Even a day's worth of a lapse in coverage will raise your premiums exponentially. This is because you'll be pooled in with higher risk individuals, and that pool pays more for insurance. This is true for car insurance, health insurance, business insurance and homeowners insurance.

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3. Too High a Deductible
If you don't have an emergency fund that meets your deductibles, you may have a problem because you won't have enough money to cover repairs to your home or your vehicle. If you pick a high deductible health insurance policy, you may be pretty much paying for all services in a given year. It's still great that there's a limit to how much your out-of-pocket expenses will be, but it won't really be of much assistance when seeing doctors or getting imaging.

4. Too Low a Deductible
If you don't file claims unless absolutely necessary and you're really having trouble making timely insurance payments, increasing your deductible will lower your monthly bill. Just save up for that higher deductible – just in case.

5. Filing Small Insurance Claims
If you can afford to fix a repair that is less than....(TO BE CONTINUED, link below)
https://smartfinancial.com/bad-insurance-habits