The importance of taking out holiday property cover

If you own a second home in which to enjoy your holidays, the chances are that it’s a fair few miles away from your permanent residence and might even be overseas. Although the distance might enhance your enjoyment of your holiday home when you actually get there, in between times you might nevertheless worry whether the building and its contents are faring well without your being on hand to keep an eye on it. To ease your worries it may make a great deal of sense to take out holiday property cover.

That is one of the key differences, of course, in arranging holiday property cover, compared to the home insurance you’re likely to have purchased for your principal place of residence – the former is probably not occupied for some months out of the year and that fact alone might make it more vulnerable. During the times when it is unoccupied, you may worry about the following:

• often acts as an unwelcome magnet for vandals and others intent on malicious damage;

• has no one on site to check whether a dripping tap or burst pipe needs fixing – before the leakage turns into a flood;

• risks one relatively minor fault – a loose roof tile, for example – that is not repaired in a timely manner creating more serious damage (if high winds dislodge the roof tile and it comes crashing down through the conservatory;

• needs the insurer to be aware that it is unoccupied for some periods and, even then, in the case of many standard home cover policies, might have the level of insurance cover reduced during those periods when it is unoccupied.

With carefully chosen specialist holiday property cover, bought from an experienced provider in this particular sector of the market, the insurer is more likely to share an understanding of the risks facing your holiday home and its contents, including those periods when it lies empty. If your holiday home is overseas, a particular advantage in selecting such a UK-based insurer is that the policy, of course, is written in English. Not only that, but if you do ever need to submit a claim, you are likely to find reassurance in the fact that all of the details, any explanation and the questions that you need answered are also going to be in readily-understood English.