Buying in bulk is one of the hallmarks of consumerism. From sprawling supercentres to meal combos, the idea that offering more of something to extract more money from buyers is as old as capitalism itself (well, maybe it took a few weeks or so to make that strategic leap).
If that sounds dark and cynical, I apologise. The reality is, bulk offerings can benefit consumers enormously, provided they don't go overboard and splurge without purpose.
One product for which that is rarely a concern is insurance. Shopping for insurance is very different than shopping for bulk snacks. You don't shop for insurance and risk coming home with 12 items you had no intention of buying in the first place—as most of us have probably done with some combination of snacks, candies, soft drinks, frozen foods, etc. at some point in our lives. With insurance, you know exactly what you're looking for, be it insurance for a home, car, trip, life, or perhaps something more obscure like a boat or drone.
Which is why bulk shopping for insurance is so straightforward. It goes by the term "bundling" and usually just involves putting two or three policies together to get a nice discount on all of them. The case for bundling is an easy one to make: why spread all your insurance products out if you can get discounts just for keeping them together? (It's even recommended by the Government of Canada!).
Sure, it's possible that some insurers might be willing to quote you at a much lower rate than what you're paying for one individual coverage type in a bundled policy. It's just not super likely that would be the case, or that there would be two insurers who could both be quoting at low enough prices to justify not bundling with one.
The amount that bundling together policies can save you will differ by insurer, but there's sort of a common ballpark that the savings numbers tend to fall in. A safe estimate would be 15 per cent overall across both policies. Some on the lower end will trend more towards ten while others are willing to go as high as 20.
With policies totalling hundreds—if not thousands—of dollars on an annual basis, that's hundreds of dollars being saved simply by bundling. Bundling does have some drawbacks, as we've covered before on Smart Coverage, but it is worthwhile enough that it should be on every insurance buyer's radar.
