Here are some tips on how to save on homeowner’s insurance:

Shop around. Comparison shopping for policies could take some time, but it could also save you serious money. There are dozens of homeowner’s insurance comparison websites around to make this task easier.

Increase your deductible. If you are comfortable with a bit more money coming out of your pocket in the event of a natural disaster or other damage to your building, increasing your deductible to over $1,000 can save you as much as 25% on your policy.

Get your rebuilding costs right. You should not be insuring your home for its full value, which includes both the home’s structure and the land it sits on. When calculating rebuilding costs, only include the value of the structure itself, not the land.

Improve your house’s security. Intstalling burglar alarms, smoke detectors, and dead-bolt locks can cut your homeowner’s insurance premium by over 15%.

Ask for discounts. Most insurers have a variety of discounts available, such as if you are over 55 or have an auto insurance policy with the same company. be sure to ask what’s available when shopping for a policy.

With a bit of planning you can get a great homeowner’s insurance policy without paying an arm and a leg for it.

For valuables such as these, most homeowner policies place a limit of $1,000 to $2,500 for each category of item. That means, for example, that all of your jewelry combined – not each item – would only be covered up to the $1,000 to $2,500 total limit. If you have antiques or heirlooms you can quickly see how such coverage would be woefully inadequate.

To properly cover valuables you will first have to decide which items you want covered. Then take those items to a professional appraiser who will put a price tag on each item. You will then need to contact your insurance company to get a rider placed to include each item on your policy. This usually costs around $1 per month for every $100 in coverage, although it varies by insurer.

While it won’t necessarily be cheap to insure all your valuables, you will sleep better at night knowing you will be properly compensated if anything ever happens to them.

Here’s how it works: when you sell your policy to a stranger, that person pays you a cash sum and continues to pay the premiums on the policy to keep it current. Here’s where it gets weird: the stranger to whom you sold your policy only profits when you die.

These transactions are called life settlements and they are becoming more common. Huge banks like JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs invest in packages of life settlements because the return is not correlated with the stock market. So as an investor, life settlements can be a great way to diversity and hedge your stock market exposure.

Investors in life settlement policies prefer people over 65 who are insured for at least $500,000 or more. So would you sell your life insurance policy to a stranger?