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Flee through the insurance folder: Those who avoid mistakes can save a lot of money – and increase protection
Photo: Thomas Trutschel / photothek / IMAGO
There are two relaxed ways to get the most out of your annual insurance payments:
Either you use a long weekend, like now on Ascension Day, to flee through your insurance folder, get rid of superfluous contracts, finally take out the necessary protection and discover potential savings.
Or you can create a nice list of your ten to twelve most important policies, check and optimize one every weekend in the coming months and reward yourself with salad and apple spritzer, wine and pizza after the work is done - always together with your loved ones.
If you need a little extra motivation, here are 11 pointers to common insurance misconceptions.
Misconception 1:
You need a lot of insurance on vacation because it is particularly dangerous abroad.
Not correct.
The only insurance you really need is good international travel health insurance.
Because if you really get sick – which I do not wish you would do – your health insurance company will not necessarily pay for everything that doctors and hospitals in neighboring countries charge for.
Quite apart from a medical repatriation costing ten thousand euros.
Good contracts cost less than a tenner for singles and less than 30 euros a year for families.
Here you get a lot of performance for little money.
However, you do not need luggage insurance.
If in doubt, your good household contents insurance will pay for the break-in in the hotel room.
Here you pay a lot of money for little service - and can easily save what you previously spent on travel health insurance abroad.
You don't need travel cancellation insurance anyway once you've started your trip.
more on the subject
Travel cancellation and health insurance abroad: How to secure your vacationBy Lilian Fiala
Misconception 2:
The insurers spend most of the money they pay you on repairing the damage.
Same with car insurance.
But if you buy residual debt insurance, more than half of your hard-earned money will probably end up with the distributor who talked you into buying the product - says the insurance regulator Bafin.
So I can't recommend it either.
And even with household contents insurance – probably sensible for one or the other – not even 40 cents of every euro paid are actually spent on insurance claims.
The rest simply ends up in the coffers of the insurers - shows the statistics of the General Association of Insurers.
That is why it is important and very possible to get a good contract with this insurance company and still save a lot of money.
One to two hundred euros are often included.
Misconception 3:
The fully comprehensive insurance always pays if you cause an accident with your own four wheels.
Does not she.
If, for example, you drive through the red light or get behind the wheel after the second beer, it can easily happen that your insurance company does not pay for the damage to your own car.
And you are therefore left with the damage yourself.
Unless, of course, you have a good contract with customer small print that is beneficial.
The key word: The insurance company waives the objection of gross negligence.
That doesn't have to make the contract more expensive.
Misconception 4:
Car insurers are nice, so you can also pay your insurance in installments - especially as a young person without high no-claims discounts, i.e. when car insurance is still particularly expensive.
Almost half of car owners do.
But it's not cheap.
Many car insurers enrich themselves with the installment payments of their customers.
Installment payments are up to ten percent more expensive than a one-off transfer.
Makes 100 euros in the insurance policy of a young driver.
That's actually napp.
It would be cheaper to go knee-deep to the overdraft facility to pay the insurance premium at 15 to 20 percent interest.
Rather pump your grandmother and pay annually.
Misconception 5:
If you contract Corona at work, your statutory accident insurance will pay through the trade association.
Unfortunately mostly not.
Only around 150,000 of the total of 26 million infections have so far been recognized by the professional associations as occupational diseases.
However, the Robert Koch Institute wrote in 2021 that it expected 10 to 15 percent of work-related infections.
If you have been infected at work, it is worth fighting for recognition.
It goes without saying that this insurance cover is available for sick nurses, doctors and educators - but not necessary for police officers or bus drivers, carpenters or employees on the assembly line in industrial companies.
Recognition as an occupational disease has advantages above all if your corona infection has long-term consequences.
The employers' liability insurance association or accident insurance pays wage replacement for longer, they pay for job-related rehabilitation measures and also retraining.
Sometimes you have to go to court.
Sick Bavarian police officers have successfully sued because they previously had to serve at a corona denier demonstration.
Misconception 6:
Private accident insurance pays if you break your leg in an accident.
No!
Private accident insurance only pays for permanent damage and uses a so-called limb tax to determine how much it pays.
For example, if you lose a finger, the insurance company pays five percent of the sum insured.
If the ankle remains stiff, it can be as much as 20 percent.
Misconception 7
:
An insurance company cannot simply cancel.
Yet.
According to their conditions, many insurers can first pay for the damage and then cancel it on the next regular due date.
This is especially the case after several claims in a short period of time with legal protection insurance or car insurance.
However, insurers are not allowed to terminate life insurance, health insurance and occupational disability insurance.
Tip on the side: It is better to give notice yourself than to be given notice.
This will make it easier for you to find a new contract – relevant for legal expenses insurance, for example.
Misconception 8
:
Liability insurance pays the original price in the event of damage.
Not correct.
Liability insurance usually only pays the current value.
So if, when you visit your neighbor, you accidentally knock his ten-year-old television off its pedestal, he won't get the money from your insurance that he once paid for the set.
Instead, there is only the current value of the television replaced, and there is a high probability that he will not be able to buy a new set.
Behind this is also an often underestimated function of liability insurance.
It also protects the insured against excessive liability claims by the injured party.
This principle also plays a role in
Misconception 9:
Liability insurance usually pays when your young children get into mischief.
no
If your four-year-old daughter decorates the tailgate of the neighboring Mercedes with a picture using your car keys, your liability insurance will not pay.
Your child is not capable of committing a crime, you are not liable.
If in doubt, your insurance company will also ensure that you do not have to pay in court.
What that does to your relationship with your neighbors is another question entirely.
That's why you can also take out liability insurance policies that pay for damage caused by children who are incompetent to commit crimes.
Good contracts do that.
Misconception 10:
Legal protection insurance pays for divorce.
No, she doesn't.
The same applies to disputes that arise around building a house – they are also not covered.
Both would be too common for legal protection insurance and therefore too expensive.
That is why she excluded these services.
However, there are a few insurers who at least pay for the legal advice before the actual divorce proceedings.
Of course, no payment is made if the members of a jointly insured family sue each other.
Misconception 11
:
In the event of flooding, household contents insurance pays.
In the event of damage like last year in the Ahr Valley, neither the building insurance nor the household contents insurance will pay for the damage that has occurred.
This requires additional insurance, the so-called elementary damage insurance.
In Rhineland-Palatinate, less than 40 percent of homeowners had such natural hazard insurance for their building in 2021.
In neighboring Baden-Württemberg it was more than 90 percent.
The reason: Insurance was still mandatory there until 1994 – as is still the case in Switzerland today.
You can add an elementary damage component to your current building or household contents insurance at practically any time.
This often only costs 50 to 100 euros more per year.
Or you are looking for a new insurer for the building for the next cancellation date – with a cheap elementary damage policy.
Good luck in optimizing your insurance cover and lots of friends on the evenings together afterwards - with loved ones.
