There have been many headlines in the last two weeks about the current financial and market crisis in the United States. The most important one, from an insurance point of view, was the bailout of AIG. This was probably good news if you were a customer with them since you don’t have to go scrambling to find a new insurer.

Nevertheless, many people rightly feel that we as taxpayers should not have to be on the hook for poor business choices made by financial institutions. However, I am not going to discuss who is to blame or even how to fix the problem (I will leave that to people more qualified than I am), but instead I will give you a few ideas on how you should look at your personal insurance options given the current climate of economic uncertainty.

To do this I will look at four different types of insurance that you may or may not have. These will be auto, health, life and home insurance. There are ways you can structure your insurance policies that can save you money while maintaining the coverage you need.

Auto Insurance

If you drive there is no way you can get around having coverage for your car. That being said there are ways you can reduce your auto insurance premiums. The easiest way to do so is to get a free quote (see the left hand sidebar of this page). Beyond that I have previously outlined 11 insanely easy ways to reduce your auto insurance premiums by 40%. Hopefully you can find some new ideas to help save you even more money.

Health Insurance

Losing your job can have a double blow on your finances if you also lose your health coverage at the same time. Obviously, you will want to find a new job as soon as possible but until you do, you may need to consider paying for your own health coverage.

Many people consider health insurance as optional at least for the short term. However, you never know when an accident or disease may strike, so it is a good idea to stay covered at all times. You can find out which companies are offering good deals on individual health insurance coverage in your state just by using the free quote option on the left hand sidebar.

Life Insurance

This is another type of coverage that many people consider optional, and in certain cases I think it is. If you don’t have any dependents (e.g. kids or a spouse who does not work) then you really don’t need any coverage beyond your funeral costs. This is especially true of things such as children’s life insurance which is totally unnecessary for 99.9% of all families.

Another important thing to consider when thinking about life insurance is whether to opt for term or whole life coverage. With the current market conditions it may seem tempting to build cash value with a whole life plan but I still think term life makes more sense. If you are not sure, you can always get a mix of both coverage types to hedge your bets no matter what the future throws at you. You can find great deals on life insurance coverage by getting a free quote on the left hand sidebar.

Home Insurance

If you have a mortgage you probably already have homeowners insurance, since most lenders will require you to have it. You need to make sure you have enough of it and that you are paying as little for it as possible. Essentially, you want to make sure you have enough coverage to cover the costs of rebuilding your home should the unthinkable happen. You can do this by getting a few contractors to give you quotes on what they think it would cost to rebuild. It may be less than you think, due to the oversupply of builders left over in many areas due to the housing crisis.

The reason why you don’t need to cover the full cost of your home is that we are assuming that the land your house is built on still has some value as well. To pay as little as possible for that coverage you can simply get a free quote from the left hand sidebar.

So there you have it, a few simple ideas on how you can maintain all the coverage you need at prices you can afford. I expect to see increasing competition over the next year in the consumer side of the insurance industry. This means you should get a free quote for each of your insurance products every 6-12 months to make sure you are continuing to pay as little as possible. To see if you paying as little as possible right now, just select one or more of the free quote options listed to the left of the screen.