Soloenrd Travel and Holiday

Holiday home insurance is not the same as the insurance you obtain on the home you actually live in – and it can be a lot harder to get hold of. However, insuring your holiday home is every bit as essential as insuring your own residence.

Why can holiday home insurance be harder to obtain? There are two aspects in particular of a holiday home that make insurers very cautious:

1. The possibility that it may be let out as a holiday rental, which would mean large numbers of different people coming and going.

2. The possibility that it may be left unoccupied for longer periods than an ordinary residential home.

Both of these mean that as far as insurers are concerned there are more risks attached to a holiday home than to an ordinary residential home. For this reason it is very unlikely that you will be able to insure your holiday home as an extension to the policy on your main home. You will need to find a specialist holiday home insurance provider, or a specialist broker.

When you are discussing your holiday home insurance policy, you need to be absolutely certain that it includes all the essential elements. Otherwise you may find you are not covered when an emergency happens. So what are the elements that need to be included?

Buildings insurance. As with your own home insurance, you must insure for the cost of rebuilding, not just for the current market value. However, your own home insurance is likely to include a condition limiting periods of unoccupancy to a maximum of 30 days. If your holiday home is going to be unoccupied for longer periods, the policy will be more expensive, but even more essential.

Contents insurance. Contents cover furniture, electrical appliances, soft furnishings – anything you would take with you if you moved. Make sure you find a policy that covers you for replacement value on a new-for-old basis – that is, don’t just insure your contents for what they would sell for now, but for what it would cost to replace them. Remember you aren’t just insuring against theft, but against fire or flood damage.

Try to find an insurance company that will reduce your premiums accordingly the more precautions you take against theft, fire and flood. (You shouldn’t leave personal valuables such as jewellery in the holiday home when you’re not there – your holiday home insurance probably wouldn’t cover them. If you take them with you on holiday, you should insure them under your home contents policy.)

Public and employer liability insurance. Anyone who comes into, or near, your holiday home for any reason could sue you if anything happened to them – for instance if they were injured by a falling tile, tripped over a tree root, or slipped on a slippery patch on the floor. Similarly if you employ anyone in connection with your holiday home, such as a cleaner, handyman or caretaker, you are legally obliged to have employer liability insurance.

Travel enthusiasts in UK are either off to their ski holidays or are desperately planning for next summer’s break. Other than the usual tourist hotspots, exotic lands in far away countries are on the hot-list of almost everyone. Travel insurance is a necessary evil that all of us will have to indulge in. With the global threat of terrorism, it has become all the more imperative that people who are travelling by public transport get insurance cover.

But otherwise as well, the usual demons like sickness, lost baggage, cancelled trip, illness of loved ones, missed flights, theft of valuables etc make insurance a must-have instead of an indulgence. Those going for a ski holiday must consider insurance all the more because there are more and more cases of patients not being able to afford airlifting in case of accidents on ski slopes.

Many people think that just because they are paying for their holiday through their credit card, they can make do with the free insurance cover given with it. But on reading the finer print, one finds that the cover is not absolute and has several clauses working against the interest of the insured. Moreover, credit card companies are third party providers, thus causing difficulties during the times of the claims.

Your best bet would be to compare various travel insurance providers online. Just browse through their pages and choose the best quotes. This comparing should be done not just on the basis of quotes but the extent of coverage as well. For example, you would do well to enquire whether the cover is extended to cancellation of holiday in case your loved ones fall sick.

Those on a tight budget can get low cost holiday insurance by keeping a few things in mind. It would be wise to check if your home cover includes lost or stolen items during travelling. Most home insurance covers include this clause and if your cover does too, you can save a lot of money. Besides, travel insurance often doesn’t cover the full value of the valuables unlike home insurance where the full value of the lost item is compensated. So, if you want an extra low cost holiday insurance, its better to get a cover for lost valuables from your home insurance rather than pay extra premium on your travel insurance.