Articles:
Holiday
Home Insurance – What cover do you need?
SB May 2007
In all the
excitement of buying your holiday home, it’s
hard to think about things going wrong. That
may be why the insurance industry has warned
that a large number of holiday homes are
completely uninsured!
Yet if there is
one type of home that does need insuring, it’s a
holiday home. Your holiday home is extra
vulnerable – long periods of lying empty lead to
higher risk of both burglary and weather
damage. So what types of
holiday home insurance
do you need?
Buildings insurance.
This is the obvious one and in fact if you have a
mortgage, your lender will almost
certainly insist on adequate buildings
insurance. Make sure you insure for the
rebuild value, not just the market value.
If you have a survey done when you are
buying, the survey report will include a
rebuild estimate for holiday home insurance
purposes.
Contents insurance.
Very few insurers will let you include the
contents of your holiday home in the
contents policy on your main home. You need
to take out a separate
holiday home insurance contents policy.
You must make it very clear to the insurer
that it is for a holiday home that is not
occupied all the time. Otherwise, if an
incident occurs in your absence, like
burglary or a fire, you may find you’re not
covered. The premiums will almost certainly
be higher than for your main residence, but
you must pay them. (Holiday home insurance
policies don’t usually cover personal
valuables. If you take valuables to your
main home, make sure they are insured under
your main household policy.)
Public liability insurance.
Most household policies include legal
liability insurance as standard – just make
sure yours does. If it’s optional, take
it. It is essential, especially if you are
planning to let the property. Even if
you’re not, there are all sorts of things
that could happen. Friends using it could
have an accident, or there could be a fire
or leakage in your absence that damaged
other people’s property.
Employer’s liability insurance.
If you are employing anyone in connection with your
holiday home, such as a cleaner or a
gardener, you must have this cover.
Don’t let your dream holiday home turn
into a nightmare. If you can’t afford
holiday home insurance, you should
consider whether you can afford a holiday home
at all.
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