The UK Insurance Blog

The article “Brits leave personal goods unattended in holiday homes” highlights the fact that holiday home owners are leaving valuable belongings unattended at their own risk.

Our holiday homes are not secure! Containing collectively, over £6.3 billion worth of personal possessions and valuables, it comes as a surprise to learn that holiday home protection is not adequately provided for.

The company Zurich Private Clients are observing a pattern where their affluent clients are being targeted for burglary even when they are occupying their second homes. It seems a popular trick is to release gas into the air con system so that they can steal valuables without the victims resisting.

People with second homes are not paying attention to insurance. About one in ten have no contents insurance for their holiday home and eleven percent have claimed they have no idea if their insurance is adequate.

Holiday home owners, for some reason, seem to be a little cavalier about their security arrangements. Basic practices like fitting locks on the windows are being ignored. Don’t tell anyone, but 6% have admitted to no security at all. The message the insurance companies want to put out is that even though a holiday home is secondary their security protection should be afforded just as much attention as their first home.

They are left empty for the majority of the year, sometimes for months at a time. Two thirds of people with holiday homes claim to visit them no more often than every three months. Although offering out the holiday home to friends and relatives, many of these holiday-homers admit their homes quite often remain empty for at least a month at a time. When holiday homes in Britain have contents to the average value of £15,200, it comes as a big surprise that they have such a slap dash attitude to their belongings. Despite this however, when quizzed they claimed they were worried about the security of their holiday home, particularly of local crime and their empty house being targeted by criminals.

Never before has property been at a premium for the buyers of the UK holiday home market. Apparently, we can’t get enough! Even if we haven’t the time to enjoy our second properties for more than twice a year, we still can’t resist investing in them!

These holiday-homers – they just don’t seem to get enough! Around 18% of holiday home owners are actively seeking more properties and forty seven per cent of these are ready to purchase in 2008.

Countries that are the most popular with purchasers of holiday homes are France and Spain (24% and 26% respectively). Other destinations moving up the ranks include Cyprus and Bulgaria. Twenty five per cent of people who are hoping to buy a holiday home in the near future are thinking about purchasing somewhere in the United Kingdom. Half the holiday home buyers are hoping to find their dream home on the continent while twenty five per cent want to find somewhere outside of Europe.

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Horse & Hound reports that a forthcoming court case will highlight the need for racehorse owners to hold third party liability insurance.  In a tragic accident at Wolverhampton race course in April 2005 Chris Kinane, assistant to Midlands trainer Ian Williams, was kicked in the head by Saameq, a horse trained by Ian Semple and owned by David Irvine. Chris Kinane was serously injured in the incident and his injuries are so severe that he will require constant care for the rest of his life.

In the case coming to court this year messrs Semple and  Irvine are being sued for negligence. According to the Animals Act 1971, all horse owners are liable for the actions of their horses no matter how much reasonable care is taken to avoid an accident. Since March 2007 third party liability insurance has been mandatory for all trainers but there has been nothing in place requiring owners to be similarly covered and sadly Mr Irvine, the owner of the horse, was uninsured.

The Racehorse Owners’ Association which represents 7,200 of the UK’s 16,000 racehorse owners has this year increased its membership fees to add third party liability insurance to it’s list of benefits but that still leaves many horse owners without this essential cover.  Both of the horse insurance companies on the web site offer third party liability insurance as either part of the policy or as an add-on.