School holidays raise household claims

by Gill Montia

Story link: School holidays raise household claims

Sainsbury’s Home Insurance is warning parents that the school summer holiday period is a time when home insurance claims increase because of damaged caused by children.

Family pets also join the fray, bringing the total bill for accidental damage claims to around £639.3 million for the 2006 school holiday period.

Most children are at home for between six and nine weeks over the summer months and the chances of something getting broken or damaged is high.

Last year, 5.6 million people experienced some property damage caused to the family home by children or pets, during the school holidays.

Claims by parents for damage caused by their own children numbered 1.33 million. However, it seems that the friends of policyholders’ children do the most damage accounting for 3.98 million claims.

In terms of pets, 1.33 million claims were made for damage during summer 2006 but this is unlikely to reflect the true scale of the destruction caused by animal companions because only 4% of home insurance policies cover this kind of loss.

The area of the home most at risk from children and pets is the garden; walls, carpets and other types of flooring are also highly vulnerable.

Geographically speaking, homes in the north of England appear to be the most susceptible to such damage during the summer holidays. Claims were at their lowest in the London area.