Insuring Your Holiday Home To Let And Keeping Your Peace Of Mind

If you own a holiday home abroad, letting it out when you’re not using it can be a convenient source of easy income, as well as giving you the peace of mind that your property is not just lying empty and vulnerable in your absence. Unfortunately in reality it’s not that simple and there are risks involved in allowing strangers to stay in your holiday home. After all, you have a lot of money invested in your place in the sun, and letting, although the benefits are clear, increases the risk to your property and possessions. But it is a problem easily solved, all you need to do is make sure that your insurance for second homes policy covers you for the type of problems that could arise from letting your holiday home.

A lot of insurance policies for holiday homes do not include cover people other than family and friends, so make sure you get a specialist holiday home insurance policy, which will allow you to rent the property to other tenants. Of course the risks of allowing strangers into your holiday home are obvious, so making sure you have a policy which covers accidental damage to the house and its contents will put your mind at rest. Another thing to consider is what you would do if something did happen to the property and the potential loss of rental income – some policies will not only cover this cost but also provide alternative accomodation for you or your tenants.

The most important thing to remember when choosing an insurance policy is to always read the small print. You might find that house insurance in Spain, Italy and other popular holiday destinations is cheaper to buy from the country in question, but these European policies for holiday homes are often a lot more limited than UK policies in the cover they offer. For instance some countries do not insure property against damage caused by a guest or tenant as standard, and assume that visitors will have their own ‘liability insurance’ policy. A catch like this in your insurance policy could put people off visiting from the UKL as they would have to pay more for their travel insurance, not to mention the risk to you as you’d be relying on the tenant to have insurance, and if they didn’t you wouldn’t be covered. The easiest solution is insuring your holiday home with a UK based company, where public liability insurance is included in the premium.

Another common mistake that holiday home owners make is accidentally signing a policy where they are required to visit the property and peform regular checks every week. Failure to cpomplete these checks would mean the policy was invalid but it’s clearly not possible when your second home is in another country. Fortunately not all insurance policies have requirements like this, so shop around for the best deal but remember that it is still advisable to have the property checked regularly (by an agent or reliable trustworthy neighbour) in case there is a problem and for your own peace of mind.

Link To This Post
1. Click inside the codebox
2. Right-Click then Copy
3. Paste the HTML code into your webpage
codebox
powered by Linkubaitor