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Why do you need holiday home insurance?

If you have bought your holiday property using some sort of mortgage finance, you will be required by the terms of the loan to insure the building. After all, the loan you have received has your property as its security, and the lender will want to know that you are adequately protecting this security from loss of value just as will have been the case if you have ever had a mortgage on your home in the US.

There are however various other reasons why you should insure your holiday property, whether you have a loan to buy it or not. Contact new brunswick insurance for more information about holiday home insurance.

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Would you consider leaving a performance car parked outside in all weathers many hundreds of miles from where you live? Or would you be comfortable if your family home was left empty for months on end with no one there to notice if problems arise? It is likely that you would not leave something of great value unprotected, and most particularly you wouldn’t if you were not there to keep an eye on it every day. Insuring something as valuable and as prone to deterioration and damage as a building is really essential.

If your property is in an area which experiences particular natural phenomena such as earthquakes or hurricanes, or avalanches, you should ensure that you have sufficient cover for these risks too. It is very important to be honest and thorough in the information that you give your insurer so that you are sufficiently covered and do not invalidate any insurance cover by giving false information.

As you may be many hundreds or thousands of miles from your property, and not able to visit it frequently, the insurer’s requirement that your holiday home is inspected regularly is actually of benefit to you. A systematic inspection of the property, say once a month, pre-empts or at least catches early, problems such as leaking pipes and structural damage, break-in, vandalism and other such problems.

Such inspections may well mean the difference between a cheap quick solution to a problem found early and a major expensive incident if a problem is allowed to escalate over time. If, however, a repair should be required that will cost a substantial amount of money to address; as with all insurance, instead of having to find large sums in one go, if you have bought appropriate and sufficient insurance cover, a lot of the financial worry and headache will be removed from the situation.

Additionally, the insurance company may well have tried and tested tradespeople to call upon who will deal with any work involved, so saving you from having to find such a service provider yourself in an emergency. This is very useful when you live remotely from your second home and would be of particular benefit if the property is overseas, where communication might be an additional issue.

If you rent out your holiday home for holiday lets, specialized insurance will also cover the various problems that can arise when third parties stay in your property. Various types of damage to the fabric of the house and its fixed fittings and theft can be covered under buildings’ insurance. If you have contents insurance too then yet more items such as TV’s and computers can be covered. Third party liability cover is something you might not immediately consider as you get excited about making money from your holiday home, but liability insurance to protect you, the owner, against claims for loss or injury to those using your holiday home and offers great peace of mind when you have to deal with a stream of members of the public using your property.

Also, important in the letting environment is cover for loss of letting earnings and cover of domestic staff involved with the property (such as cleaners or gardeners). Your insurer will be able to talk to you about all standard and optional covers available to suit your particular needs. Similarly, if you offer extras in your property, such as a swimming pool or other equipment, you can enquire about the cover recommended for the equipment itself and also against any claims by those who use it.

So even if you are not obliged to take out insurance on your property, for peace of mind on a financial and logistical level and to facilitate the smooth running of your holiday home in spite of any hiccups that will occur with the property along the way, the right holiday home insurance policy is a good annual investment.

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