Lloyds TSB home insurance has decided to offer its customers a home insurance scheme that has been directly influenced by the recession. Now, customers who sign up between April 6 and June 6 will qualify for the option of getting out of paying their premium for up to six months if they become redundant.

This home insurance premium waiver comes as a direct result of research carried out by Lloyds TSB into how safe people are feeling at the moment in their jobs, which brought up some interesting results. As a part of the findings, it was discovered that 25% of the people surveyed said that they felt at risk of redundancy over the next year.

This is a striking figure in itself, but other worrying statistics to emerge were that 75% of those questioned said they were trying to cut back on their household bills, which could include home insurance, at the same time as 60% of people being increasingly worried about security. More than 10% also said they were unlikely to renew their home insurance policies, with more saying they had already cancelled it.

With more people cutting back on insurance and other essentials, this new offer is designed to keep the customers buying home insurance, by tempting them in with a fair offer that they will not have to pay if they become redundant. The waiver will affect anyone buying the Home Solutions insurance from Lloyds TSB in the next few months, and the waiver will apply to anyone who becomes redundant before the end of the year.

We seem to have nailed the tricks with price comparison sites when it comes to car insurance in the UK and thousands of previously unhappy customers are now smiling, thanks to all the websites out there that are helping us find exactly the right deal. But for some reason, we in the UK just haven’t taken the same initiative when it comes to our home insurance and it’s reported by the price comparison website confused.com that in total a staggering £1.3 billion is being wasted every year.

The study showed that only 7% of home-owners checked and compared their home insurance quotes in 2008, leaving 93 out of 100 people probably paying more than they needed to. With a few clicks of the mouse buttons, and an empty Sunday afternoon in front of the computer, it’s thought that the average that home insurance customers could save is around £185 per year.

One of the main reasons customers might not be regularly checking their quotes is that they don’t think the prices will alter that much over the course of the year. They might not think they’ve done anything to warrant a change to the premium, but the purchase of a new item of furniture, or a new appliance, or even something like a recent spell of burglaries in the area, can make the quote change considerably. Some people are finding this out the hard way and not just in their annual premiums either. It might be that your cover has changed and when you come to make a claim you’re no longer even covered. It’s strongly advised that all home insurance customers shop around at least annually to see what they’re still covered for and whether they could get a better deal. After all, we don’t actually live in our cars do we?