Hi, last moth I read an article on recurring services and the money earned by the companies offering them because 99% of the consumers never check the conditions when the contract is updated. People tend to keep what works well (don't fix what ain't broken). So for fun I decided to check a few insurances and a few monthly services I use.
The reoccurring contracts I check were (in the Netherlands these are the usual suspects):
Home insurance
In the NL the insurance companies tend to index the value of your house and everything in it. Because these automatic increases are often higher than inflation or actual value increase after a few years peope tend to be over-assured (which means you can get punished for over insuring in case of damage and actually get paid less): Indeed I was over insured after staying for 20 years with the same company! So reducing the insured amount (and monthly fee) actually was an improvement.
Travel insurance
Here the opposite happens in the NL. Due to fraud and lower cost of airfares the insured amounts have dropped over the years. I checked and indeed the maximum insured amount of travel costs had dropped from 3500 euro to 2000 euro in the last 10 years (in the NL it is cheaper to have an ongoing travel insurance compared to per travel insurances when you go on holiday twice a year). So I decided to pay a little extra for a higher insured amount.
Home use Internet bandwidth
The article suggested to enable the bandwidth usage monitor in you router (when you router has the option) and check your your peak bandwidth usage on a nights. When checking our peak bandwidth my wife was watching 4K TV and using her phone for social media (together) and I was watching a 1K Netflix movie, Champions League soccer and keeping an eye on MT-forum. Our combined bandwidth peaked at 23,8 Mbit/s, while we have a 400 Mb/s down and 40 MV/s up connection.
Mobile data bandwidth
The amount of data per month tends to rise each year (every year you get an offer to get a lot more data for just a buck more per month). I also took the trouble to download the monthly usage of our data. In the EU you only need the data when on holiday (otherwise you pay a lot extra for excess usage). So I decided to keep the services unchanged, but disable the wifi on our phones (also saves bandwidth for home use internet and protects you from being tracked when looking around in shops).
Bottom line result
2 x better fitting insurances (one to high, one to low) and one ISP unchanged (mobile) and ISP reduced (fromm 400Mb/s to 100Mb/s). All in all it only saved 25 euro's per month, but the insurance check was worth the effort (over insurance penalty for home insurance and under insurance surprise for travel).
The reoccurring contracts I check were (in the Netherlands these are the usual suspects):
Home insurance
In the NL the insurance companies tend to index the value of your house and everything in it. Because these automatic increases are often higher than inflation or actual value increase after a few years peope tend to be over-assured (which means you can get punished for over insuring in case of damage and actually get paid less): Indeed I was over insured after staying for 20 years with the same company! So reducing the insured amount (and monthly fee) actually was an improvement.
Travel insurance
Here the opposite happens in the NL. Due to fraud and lower cost of airfares the insured amounts have dropped over the years. I checked and indeed the maximum insured amount of travel costs had dropped from 3500 euro to 2000 euro in the last 10 years (in the NL it is cheaper to have an ongoing travel insurance compared to per travel insurances when you go on holiday twice a year). So I decided to pay a little extra for a higher insured amount.
Home use Internet bandwidth
The article suggested to enable the bandwidth usage monitor in you router (when you router has the option) and check your your peak bandwidth usage on a nights. When checking our peak bandwidth my wife was watching 4K TV and using her phone for social media (together) and I was watching a 1K Netflix movie, Champions League soccer and keeping an eye on MT-forum. Our combined bandwidth peaked at 23,8 Mbit/s, while we have a 400 Mb/s down and 40 MV/s up connection.
Mobile data bandwidth
The amount of data per month tends to rise each year (every year you get an offer to get a lot more data for just a buck more per month). I also took the trouble to download the monthly usage of our data. In the EU you only need the data when on holiday (otherwise you pay a lot extra for excess usage). So I decided to keep the services unchanged, but disable the wifi on our phones (also saves bandwidth for home use internet and protects you from being tracked when looking around in shops).
Bottom line result
2 x better fitting insurances (one to high, one to low) and one ISP unchanged (mobile) and ISP reduced (fromm 400Mb/s to 100Mb/s). All in all it only saved 25 euro's per month, but the insurance check was worth the effort (over insurance penalty for home insurance and under insurance surprise for travel).
Last edited:
