Paying Too Much for What Ifs?

I'm a very conservative person by nature, meaning I like to "protect" myself from possible risks. What I'm realizing is that this means I pay a lot to cover myself in case of what ifs.  This hit home this month because I've spent $1K on these type of expenses:

-- Long term disability insurance: When I started at this job, we didn't get any coverage, so I purchased a private policy. I've lowered the coverage amount, but I still paid $784 this month for my annual coverage. Since I now have coverage through work, I wonder if I need this at all anymore.

-- Homeowner insurance: I increased the value of my house to keep up with the market, so my premium increased this year. I paid $680 for insurance this year. I think it's about $200 more than last year. In reality, I could cover most home emergencies myself, so maybe I should look at increasing my deductible and lowering my premium.

-- HVAC coverage: I have a service repair contract so if anything happens to my HVAC or hot water heater, someone will come repair it for free. I think I even can get a new hot water heater for free under this contract. This expense is $412.

So that's a total of $1196 in expenses I might not even need (disability and HVAC) and then I could probably save at least $200 on my homeowners insurance, so that's a savings of almost $1300 a year or $108. Since I just locked in these contracts for the year, I'll have 12 months to consider whether to cut, reduce or keep these expenses, but I think it's worth considering.

Know Your Stuff

I have been going through the process of cataloging my possessions for a while now. I read about a great tool in the comments on Get Rich Slowly. It's a website called knowyourstuff.org It's great. It gives you a place to catalog and document (with receipts, images) your stuff. Obviously this will be great in the case of a fire or another catastrophe. I entered most of my stuff and even looked up the original prices from my credit card records for a lot of them. Like my wardrobe, a lot of my furniture is hand me downs, including:
My Television
My coffee table and side table
My kitchen table
My bookcase
My lamp (my mom bought it for me when I was young)

Except for my fancy bedroom furniture that I bought last year, the rest of it is mostly Ikea or of equal cost and quality. I do like most of it, so it doesn't really bother me. My couch is too big for my living room, but it is soooo comfy I refuse to give it up. At least not yet.

Changing Expenses for Next Year

So just as I was feeling all smug about keeping my ongoing expenses down, my benefits changed at work (or will change as of Jan 1). Overall, the new benefits are much better than the old. I am truly grateful to my company, as they are adding long-term disability as a benefit! Something I pay $1400 for a year right now. Of course I'll have to buy a small supplemental policy, but it should shave like $100 off my monthly costs. So that's great.

The insurance is also a much stronger plan, except of course in my case because my therapist is out of network. If she were in-network, this plan would be a dream. But since she's not there is a HIGH (2K) deductible and the worst part is that the initial plan year is only 5 months. So to continue seeing my same therapist I am going to have to bite the bullet. It's going to cost me $2300 for the first five months of the year, and that's for only 3 visits a month.

That said, I can still afford it, and to me, it's worth it, although it is a steep price. I am going to use that time to really work hard and hopefully not need as much therapy, but also to find an in-network therapist that I can switch to in June.

I will take advantage of the FSA, so at least I will be paying this big bill in pre-tax dollars.

I will have a ton of deductions from my paycheck:
401K
Transit Reimbursement
FSA

That will over all help to lower my tax bill, and hopefully I will barely pay anything for health expenses in post-tax dollars.