Posts

Part 7 – Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – General Considerations

In Part 7 – Guide to Holiday Home insurance – General Considerations we look more deeply into the conditions and warranties that may apply to your holiday home insurance policy. Ensure you have a good understanding of your policy cover and in particular you understand your obligations regarding any conditions or warranties. You or an agent may need to inspect your property every 14 days whilst empty; or ensure that a minimum temperature is maintained during cold spells if the water is not turned off and drained. These are not only sensible procedures to reduce the risk of the potential for damage to your property but may also affect your ability to make a claim if not adhered to.

Do check that you are still fully covered even if your holiday home property is vacant for long periods; some holiday home insurance policies will reduce cover to a minimum or even exclude certain covers completely.

If your holiday letting business is seasonal, you may have considered letting the property on a short hold tenancy agreement for six months. If this is your intention be sure to check that your Holiday Home Insurance policy allows for this.

For your own peace of mind check that your policy covers all of the above and remember that you only find out how good your broker and insurers are when you make a claim – so make sure that price is not your only deciding factor when selecting holiday home insurance. Compromising on cover to save money when insuring your holiday home is not an option – you wouldn’t take unnecessary risks, would you?”

Check out the following posts which expand on Boshers Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Introduction or visit our Holiday Home Insurance page.

1. Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Property Owners Liability Insurance

2. Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Employers Liability Insurance

3. Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Buildings Insurance

4. Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Contents Insurance

5. Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Loss Of Rental Income

6. Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Legal Expenses

Boshers Ltd are Independent Insurance Intermediaries and have been arranging specialist holiday home insurance for owners of commercially let UK holiday homes since 1990. For further information and quotes visit Boshers website or telephone Boshers on 01237 429444.

/0 Comments/by

Part 6 – Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Legal Expenses

Legal Expenses Insurance

This provides cover for legal fees, compensation awards or appeal costs arising from a wide range of legal disputes that you may become involved in as a Holiday Home Owner whilst running your holiday let business. Cover for all claims occurring at the same time or from the same originating cause is limited, in the case of Boshers Holiday Home Insurance Legal Expenses to £100,000.

Legal Expenses Insurance may protect your commercial holiday let business legal position in the areas shown below:

Employment disputes
Such as negotiating for an insured person’s legal rights in an Employment Tribunal for a dispute arising from their employment contract.

Contract disputes
Such as negotiating your legal rights in a dispute arising from an agreement for the sale, hire or purchase of goods and services or in connection with the buying or selling of your holiday let.

Bodily injury
Such as pursuing your legal rights following accidental death or physical injury.
Property protection
Such as pursuing your legal rights following damage to your holiday let for problems such as nuisance and trespass.

Legal defence
Defence of criminal prosecutions arising from your employment and the defence of civil actions in specified circumstances.

Holiday let Such as negotiating for your legal rights:
after an event which causes physical damage to your property; and to evict anyone in your property who does not have your permission to be there.
Defending your legal rights if an event arising from you letting your property leads to you being prosecuted in a criminal court.

Study the wording of the Legal Insurance Section closely as all policies have differing levels of cover.

Check out the following posts which expand on Boshers Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Introduction or visit our Holiday Home Insurance page.

1. Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Property Owners Liability Insurance

2. Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Employers Liability Insurance

3. Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Buildings Insurance

4. Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Contents Insurance

5. Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Loss Of Rental Income

7. Guide to Holiday Home Insurance –  General Considerations

/0 Comments/by

Part 5 – Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Loss Of Rental Income

Loss Of Rental Income

In Part 5 – guide to Holiday Home insurance – Loss of rental Income we look at how you protect your holiday letting income in the event of an insured peril affecting your property. Your specialist Holiday Home Insurance policy should also provide loss of rental income cover for insured perils, which consequently render the holiday home uninhabitable. It may take up to two years to rebuild a property levelled by fire; you should therefore check that you are covered for sufficient loss of rental income for this period. After all, if you have a mortgage to pay or if you are relying on the income from your holiday home business to live on, loss of rental income cover will be invaluable to you and your holiday cottage letting business..

Check out the following posts which expand on Boshers Guide to Holiday Home Insurance or visit our Holiday Home Insurance page.

1. Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Property Owners Liability Insurance

2. Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Employers Liability Insurance

3. Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Buildings Insurance

4. Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Contents Insurance

6. Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Legal Expenses

7. Guide to Holiday Home Insurance –  General Considerations

 

 

/0 Comments/by

Part 4 – Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Contents Insurance

Contents Insurance

In Part 4 – Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Contents Insurance we discuss the contents of your holiday home. The very nature of a holiday home is that it is a `home from home’ and therefore let on a fully furnished basis. In the past it was not unusual for the value of a typical holiday home contents to be relatively meagre. Latterly as people’s expectations have risen, as has competition within the holiday home market, it is has become the norm rather than the exception that an owner spend tens of thousands of pounds furnishing their holiday home. LCD and Plasma TV screens, surround sound home entertainment systems, hot tubs and expensive garden furniture are becoming increasingly more common.

A holiday home insurance policy with contents cover on a new for old basis will provide you with the peace of mind that your property is protected. The sum insured should be adequate to cover the replacement value of the contents in total. It is advisable for owners to complete an inventory of contents together with photographic evidence and schedule of values in case of a total loss. A tip for photographing your audiovisual electrical equipment is to also take a shot of the serial number, which can aid identification and recovery in the event of theft. 

Check out the following posts which expand on Boshers Guide to Holiday Home Insurance or visit our Holiday Home Insurance page.

1. Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Property Owners Liability Insurance

2. Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Employers Liability Insurance

3. Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Buildings Insurance

5. Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Loss Of Rental Income

6. Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Legal Expenses

7. Guide to Holiday Home Insurance –  General Considerations

 

 

/0 Comments/by

Part 3 – Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Buildings Insurance

Buildings Insurance

In Part 3 – Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Buildings Insurance We look at how you should not overlook the investment property itself – it is likely to be one of your major assets. To properly protect your holiday home property, you need to cover the buildings of your holiday home against all insurable risks for the full reinstatement cost, including any garages or outbuildings; fixtures and fittings; patios and driveways; garden walls, fences and swimming pools. You must not forget that you also need to include the cost of clearing the site in the event of complete destruction and the associated legal, architect and surveyor fees. Remember, the reinstatement cost is unlikely to be the same as the market value of the property or the price that you paid for it! If you under-insure your building you could fall victim to average being applied in the event of a claim. In a nutshell this means that, if your property is underinsured, your Holiday Home Insurance provider may not pay out the full amount of any claim, so it is important to work out the cost of replacement accurately and insure for the full amount.

You can get a good indication of your rebuilding costs by visiting the Association Of British Insurers (ABI) website and their building cost calculator for homeowners. However the onus is on you to provide an adequate sum insured so you may be wise, particularly in the case that your holiday home is of non-standard construction, to have a professional insurance valuation carried out by a chartered building surveyor. If your Holiday Home is mortgaged, your lender will often specify as a result of their survey, the minimum buildings insurance sum insured they require.

Most insurers will index link the buildings sum insured so that you maintain an accurate insurance value over time, but of course this is dependent on you getting the right value in the first place.  It’s important to remember to get permission from your mortgage lender, your insurer and your landlord (in the case of a leasehold property) before you let your property for short-term holidays. This is very important as your insurance could be invalidated if you fail to do this. Although your buildings policy usually includes theft or attempted theft; and damage by fire, lightning, explosion, earthquake, storm and flood; subsidence, heave and landslip; escape of water or oil, vehicle and animal Impact; aircraft and malicious damage; a quality Holiday Home Insurance policy should not restrict cover whilst the Holiday Home is let and will also extend to cover accidental damage.

Check out the following posts which expand on Boshers Guide to Holiday Home Insurance or visit our Holiday Home Insurance page.

1. Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Property Owners Liability Insurance

2. Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Employers Liability Insurance

4. Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Contents Insurance

5. Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Loss Of Rental Income

6. Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Legal Expenses

7. Guide to Holiday Home Insurance –  General Considerations

You may also find useful: Holiday Home Insurance – A guide to calculating your sums insured 

/0 Comments/by

Part 1 – Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Property Owners Liability Insurance

Property Owners Liability Insurance

In Part 1 – Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Property Owners Liability Insurance we look at the importance of liability insurance for holiday home and holiday cottage complex owners. Without question holiday home owners should be concerned about the substantial risks posed by third party liabilities. In this litigious society any one who owns a business can all too easily find themselves on the wrong side of a compensation claim that can seriously damage their wealth.

For this reason make sure that your Holiday Home Insurance policy includes Property Owners Liability of at least £3,000,000 of cover. If your property sleeps 8 or more people you may wish to consider increasing your cover to £5,000,000. It is vital that you are covered in this way for injury to individuals, such as your tenants, visitors or guests and damage to their property. Most, if not all, holiday letting agencies will stipulate in their terms of business that you have this cover in place in order that they will act for you. If you manage the property yourself it is equally important that you have liability cover. However, that said, cover is no substitute for good risk management. It is therefore imperative that a full risk assessment of your holiday home and its garden is carried out and relevant safety legislation adhered to. A common cause of holiday home insurance liability claims are those resulting from slips and trips resulting in a holiday cottage guest suffering an injury. Read our post limiting the risk of slips and trips in your holiday home.

Check out the following posts which expand on Boshers Guide to Holiday Home Insurance or visit our Holiday Home Insurance page.

2. Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Employers Liability Insurance

3. Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Buildings Insurance

4. Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Contents Insurance

5. Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Loss Of Rental Income

6. Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Legal Expenses

7. Guide to Holiday Home Insurance –  General Considerations

/0 Comments/by

Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Introduction

,

Holiday Home Insurance

Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Introduction. Letting your holiday home commercially has many benefits, however as with running any business it isn’t without risk. It is therefore important to get the right holiday home insurance cover. Many holiday home owners may unwittingly be relying on normal home insurance cover or even more disconcerting have no cover at all. To learn more read our Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Introduction and associated blog posts. Insurance brokers like Boshers understand the demands and needs of owners of commercially let UK holiday homes. Boshers have negotiated a specialist holiday home insurance policy with a leading insurer, Ecclesiastical. If you let out your holiday home, you should ensure that the insurer is aware; and that you do not fall foul of restricted cover when the property is not let.

Look out for a policy providing cover in each of the following key areas:

  • Property Owners Liability
  • Employers Liability
  • Buildings Insurance
  • Contents Insurance
  • Loss Of Rental Income
  • Legal Expenses

Check out the following posts which expand on Boshers Guide to Holiday Home Insurance or visit our Holiday Home Insurance page.

1. Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Property Owners Liability Insurance

2. Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Employers Liability Insurance

3. Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Buildings Insurance

4. Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Contents Insurance

5. Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Loss Of Rental Income

6. Guide to Holiday Home Insurance – Legal Expenses

7. Guide to Holiday Home Insurance –  General Considerations

/0 Comments/by