Insurance For Second Homes

Second home insurance

If you own or are purchasing a Second Home we can offer specialist insurance for buildings and contents cover for your holiday house / let property abroad or in The UK.

As an owner of a property abroad or in the UK, it is vital that you fully understand the extent and limitations of your SECOND HOME INSURANCE policy. Do you have the cover for legal liability for domestic employees? What restrictions are in place in letting and occupancy etc? If your insurance policy has been placed through an insurance company Abroad. it is more likely that you simply do not know.

The answer to this problem is a specialist in Second Home insurance. A plain English insurance policy underwritten by Lloyds of London and administered in the UK via helpful and knowledgeable staff.

Second Home Insurance abroad Holiday home insurance is a fundamental aspect of buying Second Home abroad and should never be overlooked. Whether exclusively for personal use or as an income-generating letting prospect, a foreign holiday home can bring many benefits. However, Second Home needs tailored protection from risks such as explosions or malicious vandalism as well as natural perils like storms and hurricanes. For example, damage resulting from a house hit by lightning can stretch into several hundred pounds. For peace of mind providing the opportunity to fully enjoy Second Home, holiday home insurance is indispensable.

 

Second homes in The United Kingdom

Wales

Second homes comprise of 14% of the housing stock in Snowdonia, Wales, compared to the figure of 1% for the whole of Wales. Only in Gwynedd has the council has put in place measures to control the number of holiday homes. But they only control new developments, by withholding permission where consent is likely to raise the figure in any community above 10%, they do not stop anyone from buying a second home.

England

The number in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly was calculated to be 5.6% in 2004 and 2006, this is the region which has the highest number of second homes in England. Within a year alone, between 2004 and 2005, the percentage of second homes in England increased by 3.3%.

Scotland

There were 29,299 second homes in Scotland on the 2001 Scottish Census, which accounted for 1.3% of Scotland's housing stock. This figure was 19,756 in 1981, but the majorty of the increase occurred during the 1990s. The greatest increase was seen in urban areas, contrary to the usual trends, and increased especially in Edinburgh and Aberdeen. But the majority of holiday/second homes are still to be found in rural areas, notably, 47% of these are to be found in the remote rural areas, where one in every eight house is a holiday or second home.

France

The figure in France is also fairly high: approximately 10% of all the housing stock is a holiday or second home, but the majority of these are owned by French. There are approximatley 300,000 homes, or 1% of the total housing stock which are the property of owners from abroad. Of this percentage 28% are owned by British owners, 14% Italian, 10% Belgian, 8% Dutch, 3% Spanish and 3% American.

Costs and effects

Council tax

Second home owners used to be able to claim discounts in their council tax in the United Kingdom, as the property is vacant for much of the year. This is no longer true in many counties, including Carmarthenshire; if the property is empty (but furnished) no discount is permitted and the owner will be liable to pay the tax in full. But, In Cornwall, since 2004 second home owners can claim a 10% discount in their counciltax. Prior to 2004, they could claim a 50% discount in Cornwall, they are still able to claim 50% in many other areas in England. The Welsh movement, Cymuned, promote the principle that owners of holiday homes should pay double the standard rate of council tax, as they do not otherwise invest in the local community. Testimony of this is t be seen in a report on the effect of holiday homes in Scotland, which found that those who went on holiday to Scotland spent an average of £57 a day, in comparison to just £32 a day spent by those visiting their holiday or second homes.

Community

Owners of second homes will occasionally move to their second homes permanently upon retirement, this can be a threat to the culture of an area, especially in Wales where the influx of non-Welsh speakers effects the percentage of Welsh speakers in the area and reduces the use of Welsh in everyday life. Hundreds of second homes were burnt between 1979 and the mid-1990s as a part of a campaign by nationalist movement Meibion Glynd?r to protect the indigenous language and culture.

Effect of technology

The rapid development of the Internet and technologies such as telephony and personal digital assistants that allow people to work from home since circa 1995 has blurred the division between vacation property and a primary residence. Some business people, including the British entrepreneur Richard Branson, use their second home for both business and leisure purposes.

Many internet-based services have developed to connect short term rental customers with owners or brokers of second homes.