from your current provider on your Home and Car Insurance policies. After mortgages, this is the easiest area to limit your spending by obtaining alternative insurers. According to the Daily Mail, the average quote of £629 for car insurance falls to £415 if you shop around, while buildings and contents insurance tumbles from £320 to£200. It is incredibly eay to find quotes on the internet, and if you don’t spend at least one lunch hour a year finding a better deal then saving money is not important.

1. Reclaim payment protection insurance
Too expensive and agressively sold, Loan protection insurance is one of the most lucrative products formed by the finance industry. It can add £3,000 to the cost of a £7,500 personal loan. But many people were sold it who can’t possibly make a claim against it This money is now eligible to be claimed back.

Lots of claims companies advertise on daytime television, promising to obtain you a refund but they will take 25% of whatever you win. Instead, call the FOS which is currently upholding around four out of five complaints about being missold PP . Helpfully, it offers a factsheet on how to make a complaint about PPI which you can find at financialombudsman.org.uk

2. Cancel your mobile phone insurance
It is common for people to be are strongly pressured in phone shops into spending between £60 and £70 a year on this cover. But the benefits are minimal: most won’t cover you for the only major risk, airtime abuse (if the phone is used to ring abroad), and you can claim for a lost phone on you contents cover.

Cancel your direct debit with the bank and the insurance will lapse.

3. Rethink your life insurance
Life insurance is not for life. Just because the life assurance was sold to you by your mortgage broker doesn’t mean you have to stick with that provider for the life of the mortgage. You have the option to cancel at any time to get a cheaper quote. With longevity improving (ie. fewer people dying), insurers have been cutting rates for years.

If you are in a job at a big employer, it is likely to offer death in service benefit worth at least three times your yearly salary, and often a lot more. Do you really need all that term insurance on top as well?

4. Don’t pay for travel insurance you don’t need
Step 1 Obtain a European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) from ehic.org.uk or at your local Post Office. This has replaced the old E111 forms and gives you reducedcost or free medical treatment in EU countries and Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. You may even obtain treatment faster, as you won’t have to rely on a hospital waiting to receive authorisation to treat you from an insurer.

Step 2 Check your home insurance policy. Many have clauses which already cover personal belongings (ie. your suitcase) outside the home.

Step 3 Check your private medical insurance policy, if you have one. These requently pay treatment costs incurred abroad. when you are only travelling to Europe, the only real benefit that travel insurance brings is cancellation cover. Is that worth the premiums.

If traveling outside the EU you must have travel isnurance Policies that last for a year and cover you for more than one trip always make sense if you go away more than once a year don’t pay for what you don’t need. For example, cover for winter sports.