Life seems determined to teach me a lesson this year: take a closer look at your bills!
I’m sure that like me, you’ve heard that it’s a good idea to shop around for insurance, energy providers, home loans, pretty much any bill you can think of.
But … life gets busy, the bills come in and although never welcome, they’re not too bad, so you just pay them, and get on with things.
I think the middle aged demographic is probably most at risk of this. Before you know it, two, five, ten or more years have passed since you stopped to take a closer look at your bills and accounts.
The tragedy is that companies take advantage of our complacency, and instead of rewarding loyal customers, hike the prices up! So we don’t even realise that we could actually save a fortune, just by making a couple of phone calls.
I wrote about our frustrations with our bank, a couple of months ago – about the bonus saver account that actually wasn’t – and all because we hadn’t read the fine print on a statement in 2008 …
Some Good News from the Bank
We ended up taking our complaint to the finance and banking ombudsman, even though we didn’t hold out much hope. Little ol’ us against the big nasty bank? Not a chance!
We were pleasantly surprised when the bank actually contacted us and agreed to pay the hundreds of dollars in interest we were owed.
And it would never have happened if we hadn’t examined our accounts more thoroughly, when we were doing our tax returns. That was when we realised the interest we’d been paid was nowhere near what we had expected.
Take a Closer Look at Your Insurance Bills
If you’ve been with the same insurance companies or bill providers for a while, here are a couple of stories that should get you on the phone to them, pronto … determined to stop throwing your money away!
We wanted to cancel our extras health insurance as we just didn’t feel we were getting value for money.
However when we called, the company complimented us on being such good customers for 15 years, and then offered us a better deal. Would you believe: the same cover at LESS THAN HALF THE PRICE we’d been paying?!
It really does pay to take a closer look at your bills!
My question is: Why weren’t we rewarded with cheaper premiums for being long term customers BEFORE? Why do they only pull the rabbit out of the hat just as we are leaving?!
At the beginning of the year, the hubster decided to sort out all our house and car insurances and moved them to one provider.
Guess what – when we tried to cancel the cover on one of our cars – the same thing happened! They offered us a better deal – LESS THAN HALF THE PREMIUM we’d been paying. Disgraceful!
Next Bills to Go Under the Microscope!
And now, it’s time to take a closer look at our gas and electricity bills, to see if we can save money on these too …
The moral of my story?
Even if you have no intention of cancelling policies or switching bill providers – THEY don’t know that. Flick them an email or give them a call saying that you want to cancel, and just watch them offer you a better deal!
When was the last time you took a closer look at your bills?
Linking up with Kylie Purtell for IBOT.
This is a great and timely reminder. Must make a note to check out bills and see if I can wrangle better deals. Thanks for the reminder xx
I thought we were good money managers but seems we’d become a bit slack in this area!
We’ve been doing this too. Funny how my husband losing his job made us take a closer look. I’ve got a much much better deal on my phone, we’ve changed our health insurance, changed electricity provider… and there’s more to go. It does take time but will save thousands of dollars over the months and years.
I’ve heard this sort of overpaying being called the Lazy Tax, but that’s harsh, it’s the Busy Tax.
Yes we went through a very similar process about 6 years ago when we were stuck with bridging finance and had to really cut back on things.
Timely Janet! We are assessing our insurances right now. And you just reminded me to check our Landlord Insurance as well …
We seriously cannot believe how much we saved by combining policies. The one we made the most saving on was Mr 22’s car insurance policy. He has a “fancy”car, and being a male under 25, the insurance was crippling. It literally halved when we changed insurers so he was pretty impressed!
Yes, it’s amazing how they can all of a sudden give you a better deal after they ‘talk to their manager’. I need to have a closer look at our electricity provider.
You and me both Renee x
It does frustrate me that they only offer you things as you’re leaving. It makes me feel ripped off, frankly!
I did get told on the phone once to always go through to Telstra’s phone option of “I want to leave Telstra” as they can offer bigger discounts.
I know, it makes us cranky too. We accepted the cheaper rate on our health insurance but have every intention of buying new glasses, getting our dental work up to date and pulling out completely by the end of the year. It’s the principle of the thing, y’know?
I’m half way there. I have a spreadsheet set up where I note everything down, but I’m too scared to take a close look at it! I really must.
Yeah it’s not my favourite thing to do either Jodi!
I really need to do this Janet. I tell myself I’ll shop around for insurance quotes (house, contents, car and health) all of the time but then they arrive and they’re due so I just pay it and decide I’ll do it ‘next time’.
When I have shopped around, or even contacted my own insurance company they’ll often ‘find’ discounts you wouldn’t have otherwise gotten!
You have the perfect opportunity to make some changes, with moving into a new house Deb!
Ooh great tips to reduce payments…those lenders are so cheeky to reduce by half your payments!
Good on you both for doing a little research to get a better price.
Cheeky yes … and INFURIATING! Makes me want to pull out just on principle.
This is so important! I recently discovered we were getting incorrectly charged an extra $15 a month on our mobile phone bills without even realising it! There is so much to be saved by reading bills thoroughly and following up on getting better deals etc.
Sarah, I’m embarrassed to admit this but when hubster switched all our insurance policies earlier this year, he forgot to cancel 2 of the monthly payments – and I didn’t realise until the new premiums came in. So we had been paying double insurance (hangs head in shame). Once would be acceptable, but twice?!!!
I am always logging onto my netbanking and triple checking amounts spent, account fees and interest. i have been caught out $2500 before of paying extra interest. I was quite surprised to have a hand signed letter in the mail explaining the situation and the credit back into my account. Always worth keeping a close eye on!
Much to our amazement Ashlea, the bank ended up crediting us the interest we were expecting. Technically they had done the right thing by advising of the change in interest (in the fine print at the bottom of a statement in 2008!!!!) but they should have brought it up on the other occasions when we went in to talk to them about that actual account. Luckily for us the ombudsman agree and yes, we ended up with about $2500 back 🙂
Love your last tip. Never hurts to ask. (Or threaten to leave!) #teamIBOT
It’s a darn shame we have to go those lengths though. Wouldn’t it be novel if they started offering good loyal customer discounts instead? Surely they’ve read the marketing textbook that says it’s a lot cheaper and easier to keep your current customer, than to go find new ones?!
My hubby and I are real ‘bill sleuths’ when it comes to electricity, car and home insurance and health insurance. We almost always ring a few different companies to get a quote and then go back to the original one to see whether they will beat the quote. It normally works well. As you say, they should offer you a better premium for being a loyal customer, but this never seems to happen. 🙂
I need to get down and dirty with my energy bills. It has been on my to do list forever but I am sure I am wasting my cash.