Holiday Homes & Second Homes Insurance In The United Kingdom

For many people, owing a holiday home or second home in the United Kingdom, is a dream come true but owning and buying this type of property, does need a little bit more thought and care if you want to make it a success. Often properties are located in rural or coastal areas, a good distance away from the main residence and thus making sure they are in good order, takes a good deal of co ordination.

Firstly, you will need to consider a different type of buildings & contents insurance to protect your property. Most insurance companies in the United Kingdom are not happy covering second homes or holiday homes as they do not like the often prolonged periods of unoccupancy. If you study a standard home insurance policy, you will notice that almost all, will only allow the property to be unoccupied for 30 days at a time. If you breech this 30 day rule, you may find that your cover is severely restricted or indeed you have no cover at all. Specialist insurers of holiday homes & second homes, realise that property they're asked to cover may be unoccupied for extended periods and deal with this by usually factoring in a higher premium than you would usually expect to pay for a non holiday home property. The extra premium will vary from area to area. They will also factor in an extra premium to take in to account the slightly different form of liability insurance you require to protect you against claims of negligence from renters. Of course, like most insurance companies, they will still be worried about the possibility of claims, especially as result of water peril claims such as burst pipes. In view of this , you may find that they place certain warranties or conditions on your policy, a typical warranty will include either leaving the heating on , or draining down the water systems in the property.

When you purchase your policy, you will soon discover that, the actual perils on offer are very similar to a standard home insurance policy. In fact, there are very few differences. One of the main reasons for this, is that the Council for Mortgage Lenders, insist on a certain range of perils to be included in order to secure a mortgage on the property.

Insurance companies are aware of this and realise, that unless they can comply with the conditions (unless there is an underwriting reason why they cannot), they will not sell many polices. Generally there are three policy sections. Buildings, Contents, Liability Insurance. As with buildings insurance, under the contents section you will find a typical range of perils on offer. Some policies are often extended to include Loss of Metered Water, Trace & Access cover & Emergency Access cover. The cover for your liabilities does vary in the amount of indemnity on offer but in the United Kingdom, a typical amount is now ?5,000,000. Many polices are also now being upgraded to include Legal Expenses Insurance.?

The premium you will pay for your holiday home insurance, will vary from area to area , based on a number of factors. There are a number of things that you can do, to help reduce the premium, the first is by accepting a larger excess. ( Excess is the first portion of the loss that you are required to pay). Secondly, you could try to search for an insurance company that offers a no claims bonus. This will usually result in a discount being applied each year, in return for not making a claim. Usually, though, the bonus will not increase after five years.

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