Lacking key information about insured property makes the process of getting home insurance quotes more annoying and less accurate
Toronto, ON (Oct. 1, 2019) – A recent home insurance survey conducted by LowestRates.ca found that the majority of Canadians don’t know key details about their homes, meaning when it comes time to get home insurance, their initial quote might not match the final price. This also means comparing prices to get the best rate is often time-consuming and a pain.
The survey found that 59.24% of respondents do not know the replacement cost of their home — essentially, what it would cost to replace the structure they inhabit. Many homeowners mistake this as the price they paid for their home when they bought it or what they could sell their home for now.
The survey also found that 30% of Canadians don’t know what year their property was built, 43% don’t know what the square footage of their property is when including the basement and one in four don’t know how close the nearest fire station is to their home.
Knowing this information is crucial to getting an accurate home insurance quote.
“These results are pretty surprising,” says LowestRates.ca’s Co-Founder and CEO Justin Thouin. “Having the right information is crucial to getting an accurate home insurance quote, but more importantly, incorrect information can invalidate your home insurance.”
Respondents fared better in other areas of the survey: 81.11% of homeowners are aware of the kind of primary and secondary heating their homes use. But in all areas, there was a significant percentage of Canadians who weren’t aware of basic details of their homes.
LowestRates.ca has simplified the home insurance quoting process by introducing a brand new comparison tool that automatically pulls all this information for homeowners. The new home insurance quoter is now live in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories, and will go live in the rest of Canada in the coming months. Canadians can use the quoter to quickly and easily compare prices from leading brokers and insurance companies to find the best price.
“This will eliminate errors when it’s time to get home insurance,” says Thouin. “We’re thrilled to launch this brand new, innovative quoter, which will allow Canadians to quickly and easily compare home insurance quotes online so everyone can save money and get the right policy for their unique needs.”
The LowestRates.ca survey results show that the majority of homeowners, 75.44%, currently have home insurance, while just over half (50.36%) of homeowners have gotten a quote for home insurance during the past year. The survey asked how much time Canadians think it takes to get a home insurance quote — 40.76% of respondents reported they thought it takes ten minutes, while 20.43% believed it takes twenty minutes. The remaining responses are split down the middle: 19.40% of respondents reported that they thought it takes less than five minutes to get a home insurance quote, while 19.40% indicated that they thought it would take more than thirty minutes.
With the new LowestRates.ca home insurance quoter, however, it’s possible to get more than 15 quotes in just three minutes.
“We want to make sure that homeowners have the coverage they need to protect their homes, and to be aware of the costs associated with unexpected events,” said Thouin.
About the Survey
The LowestRates.ca home insurance survey was conducted from July to August 2019 and sampled 969 respondents across Canada.
About LowestRates.ca
LowestRates.ca is an online rate comparison site for insurance, mortgages, loans and credit card rates in Canada. The free, independent service connects directly with financial institutions and providers from all over North America to offer Canadians a comprehensive list of rates. LowestRates.ca’s mission is to help Canadians become more financially literate, with the goal of saving them $1 billion in interest and fees.
Source: LowestRates.ca via Diamond Marketing Group
Backgrounder:
Introducing the new LowestRates.ca home insurance quoter
By John Shmuel, Managing Editor, LowestRates.ca
Toronto, ON (Oct. 1, 2019) – We have big news at LowestRates.ca: we’re introducing a brand-new home insurance comparison quoter for consumers that makes it easier than ever to compare insurance companies and find the lowest price.
Our new quoter pulls all the key information you need to get a quote — we’ve partnered with Canada Post and insurance valuation service, iClarify, to make filling out the form quick and easy.
“We’re thrilled to launch this brand new, innovative quoter, which will allow Canadians to quickly and easily compare home insurance quotes online so everyone can save money and get the right policy for their unique needs,” says LowestRates.ca’s co-Founder and CEO, Justin Thouin.
Our new quoter is good news for Canadians, because a recent survey we did found that many homeowners don’t know important information about their homes — making their quotes potenitally inaccurate. Beginning in July, we asked nearly 1,000 Canadians questions about the homes they live in, such as the square footage of their property and how close they are to a fire station.
We found that a large percentage of Canadians we surveyed didn’t know the answers.
Knowing these key details about your home is important when getting a home insurance quote. Providing incorrect information to your insurer can be grounds for voiding a policy — which is something you really don’t want to happen when you’re staring down a $43,000 basement repair bill after your basement floods.
A closer look at what Canadians don’t know about their homes
We asked 10 questions about home insurance, and found many Canadians lack knowledge about their homes. For instance, 59.24% of Canadians don’t know the replacement cost of their home. This is an important piece of information: it’s the price it would cost to replace your house if it was completely destroyed (something many residents experienced during the Fort McMurray wildfires in 2016). Replacement cost is often confused with the price you paid when you bought your home: but that price also includes the value of the land your property sits on.
The number of Canadians getting these key details wrong is surprising, says Thouin. “Having the right information is crucial to getting an accurate home insurance quote, but more importantly, incorrect information can invalidate your home insurance.”
We also found that nearly one in three Canadians doesn’t know what year their property was built, while 43% of Canadians can’t tell you the square footage of their home when including the basement.
In an era of flooded basements, worsening wildfires and increasingly powerful storms, getting home insurance is more important than ever. But as our survey shows, for many Canadians, it can be a messy experience.
And again, the stats above are worrying, because the repercussions for providing incorrect information during a quote can range from getting quoted a much higher final price to having your insurance voided!
Our new quoter is currently available in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories. We expect it to go live in the rest of Canada by the end of the year.
So give it a spin (you’ll find a link in the first sentence of this blog post). We hope it not only helps you save money on home insurance, but it might also teach you a thing or two about your home that you might not have known.
About LowestRates.ca
LowestRates.ca is an online rate comparison site for insurance, mortgages, loans and credit card rates in Canada. The free, independent service connects directly with financial institutions and providers from all over North America to offer Canadians a comprehensive list of rates. LowestRates.ca’s mission is to help Canadians become more financially literate, with the goal of saving them $1 billion in interest and fees.
Source: LowestRates.ca
Tags: iClarify, LowestRates.ca
