Second Home Insurance

If you’re fortunate enough to own a second home, you may want to consider taking out insurance to ensure suitable protection is in place — especially for when it’s left unoccupied for an extended period. That’s because, unless you have someone keeping a close eye on things, you might not know what’s happening until it’s too late.

That’s why we provide second home insurance. This property insurance policy offers financial protection for your property, should a disaster occur.

We offer second home property insurance in the UK (England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Channel Islands) and across Europe, including Spain, France and Italy. We also offer cover for select locations outside of Europe. What’s more, we cover second homes ranging from holiday lets to apartments, caravans, and villas.

Second property insurance can provide a range of cover. As you might expect from a home insurance policy, buildings and contents cover are the most basic form of protection.

However, the protection your policy provides can depend on the extent of the cover you take out. For example, a basic policy can cover problems like loss or damage to buildings caused by fire, smoke, lightning, storms, and flooding.

Here’s a summary of what our second home insurance policies typically include:

If you take out second home contents insurance, your possessions are covered up to the policy amount. So, for example, any single item of up to £3,000 is covered (unless otherwise stated in your policy). There may be certain provisos, though, such as ensuring that any jewellery, cameras, watches, money, and credit cards are removed when the property is left empty for more than 48 hours.

Up to £25,000 – applies to confirmed bookings following an insured loss under buildings cover.

Following an insured loss under buildings cover, we’ll help cover the cost of alternative accommodation if your property is rendered uninhabitable.

Following an insured loss, your policy can cover travel costs so you can reach your second home.

If you want to let out your second home to paying guests for extra income, you are covered up to £5m public liability insurance as standard. So, if a tenant injures themselves during their stay and claims for personal injury compensation, your legal costs can be covered. In addition, public liability insurance can protect you against the financial cost of third-party claims for property damage.

We offer protection against damage sustained to swimming pools and hot tubs.

Our customers who rent out their second homes can choose to extend accidental damage protection to also cover family and tenants.

These are brief product descriptions only. Please refer to the policy documentation paying particular attention to the terms and conditions, exclusions, warranties, subjectivities, excesses and any endorsements.

The following is excluded from our second home policies:

• Damage caused by faulty workmanship or defective design
• Damage caused by pets, moths, or vermin
• Malicious damage caused by persons legally in the property
• Loss or damage caused by rising groundwater tables

We appreciate it’s often hard to decipher the definitions surrounding ‘second homes’ if you’re new to property insurance. So, let’s try to clear things up.

Our policies cover the following:

*correct as at January 2024

We’re here to help you take care of your investment with insurance cover for your property. Talk to our experienced staff today to arrange a policy that fits your property. Call us on 0345 111 0680.

Please note that these frequently asked questions are not a substitute for the policy wording. For full terms and conditions please see the policy documentation.