An introduction to holiday property insurance

If you own a holiday home — either at home or abroad — or are thinking about buying one then you may already be aware of holiday property insurance. Your property here is, in many ways, just like your regular home when it comes to insurance. With a policy in place you will get financial help if something goes wrong. Without insurance, however, you might have to meet any costs out of your own pocket. So, policies in this sector may offer you:

• Buildings cover — to help you out if anything happens to the building itself either through accident or damage.
• Contents cover — to help you out if anything happens to the fixtures and fittings and personal possessions in your property.
• Liability/Legal cover — to protect you in the event that someone takes legal action against you because of something that happened in your property.

But, holiday property insurance policies may not be exactly the same as the policies you have covering your main home. Although they might work in the same way the kind of cover you will get here may not offer exactly the same benefits as standard.

It may be worthwhile thinking about what kind of cover you need here. You might, for example, start by thinking about your holiday home itself, where it is located and what you will use it for before you decide on a policy. So issues to consider include:

1. Will you be the only people staying in the property? If your holiday home is meant just to be used by you and will remain empty the rest of the year then you might want to check that your policy gives you the right cover for periods when the property is both occupied and unoccupied. Do you need to have certain security measures in place or to meet other conditions to get cover when you are not there, for example?
2. Will you rent the property out? If you will rent out your holiday home to other people (whether friends, family or people you don’t know) then you may need to check how well the policy will cover you and them if something goes wrong. Will it, for example, give you accidental damage cover for those periods when you rent it out?
3. Where is your property located? Some people own a home in the UK whilst others prefer to buy one abroad. If your home is located abroad then you may find that your policy might not cover you in certain instances. So, for example, you may not find that a policy will give you standard cover against natural occurrences such as earthquakes in certain parts of the world.

As well as basic cover elements you may find that some holiday property insurance companies could offer other benefits that you might find useful. For example, you may be offered temporary accommodation costs, lost revenue payments and emergency travel costs so that you could visit the property if something does goes wrong.

As with any insurance product you may find that shopping around and looking at different holiday property insurance policies might be a good starting point. This will give you an idea of the benefits on offer as well as the exclusions and, at the same time, you may well be able to do a cost comparison to help you out.