While the rise is well above the annual inflation rate, it is nothing compared to the increases seen in motor insurance over recent months.

However, make hay while the sun shines as insurance companies have yet to factor in the cost of last winters freezing weather and the enormous amount of claims made over that period.

Fraudulent claims are again becoming a growing concern, something that always appears to increase during recessionary times. Data from Legal & General suggests that policyholders are already paying for fraudsters who add around £44 to every premium.

And things do not look likely to improve, moneysupermarket.com suggest that should the freezing cold winters become a trend, the cost of insuring homes will certainly be on the rise, predicting double figure increases may not be far away.

According to Aviva insurance almost all of the 758,700 plants seized by the police in 2009/10 were being cultivated in residential properties and the insurer is warning landlords to be more vigilant as claims resulting from seizures have shown an increase of 30% in claims made against the insurer for damage caused to the property.

Cannabis farming tenants will often line walls, ceilings and doors with plastic or polythene, and windows will normally have blinds or curtains closed to obscure any activity.

The plants are watered through a watering system and high powered lighting is installed, often resulting in the tenant bypassing the electricity supply or at least tampering with it.

Heat from the lights and moisture from the water can cause condensation to be produced and the pungent smell of the plants can permeate walls.

Aviva said; “Cannabis farming comes with serious risks for landlords; properties can be completely ruined inside to make space for plants, water damage can occur and fire poses a risk due to interference with electrics or strong lighting left on for a long time.”

The company adds that it is working with both clients and brokers to raise awareness regarding tenants using domestic dwellings as cannabis farms, ensuring landlords have the right level of cover in place, rather than standard home insurance.

Compared to atrocious weather in the same period of 2009, the cold snap in November and December 2010 was not only more severe, but lasted longer and affected more of the country.

Insurance claims against property and vehicles reached a staggering £1.4billion over the most recent winter period compared to the measly £650million paid out for damage caused in 2009.

In fact burst pipes alone accounted for more in pay outs in 2010 than the total claims from the previous winter, with over 100,000 claims totalling £680million.

More than 250,000 vehicles were damaged as a result of the snow and ice on the roads, leading to claims for a further £530million it is claimed.

The Association of British Insurers (ABI) who released the figures, suggest that there is no evidence that premiums had increased as a result of the cold weather, but I am sure that will follow during the course of this year.

When the weather starts to warm up, home and contents insurer Hiscox is encouraging homeowners to be on the lookout for leaks caused by burst pipes. The sub zero temperatures can result in pipes freezing and homeowners could be unaware their pipes have burst until the thaw when water begins to leak into their property.

Austyn Tusler, home insurance expert at Hiscox, comments: “The early onset of snow and ice may have caught people under prepared with their winter proofing measures. However taking some simple steps and generally being vigilant for burst pipes can prevent major damage. There is still a long winter ahead, however as the cold snap ends and there are slightly higher temperatures, frozen pipes will begin to thaw.

“Unchecked, a leak can quickly turn into large amounts of water gushing into attics or lofts, damaging the structure, electrical wiring and belongings. Catching leaks early can prevent water damage and save homeowners time and money as well as the emotional stress of experiencing loss or damage to personal belongings.”

To spot a burst pipe:

• Look for damp patches on ceilings and walls
• Inspect the loft and any isolated areas that may not be as adequately insulated to check for leaks
• If you turn on the tap and no water comes out – don’t take any chances – call a plumber immediately and turn off the water supply
• Check exposed pipes for signs of damage – a leak will not occur until the water has thawed
• If you are going away for an extended period leaving your property unattended, make sure you have someone who can check on your home regularly

If you discover a burst or damaged pipe:

• Turn off the water supply at the main water tap (or valve), and turn off the stopcock in your cold water tank if you have one
• If water has leaked near electrics or electrical appliances, switch off the mains immediately and don’t touch any areas that are damp
• Protect everything around any pipe that appears to be frozen to avoid damage
• Contact your insurer to let them know about the damage within the time specified in your insurance policy
• Ring a tradesperson – again check with your insurer on whether they have a panel of approved tradespeople

For further insurance advice, visit Hiscox, specialists in a variety of insurance packages, including both Home & Personal and Business, such as Professional Indemnity Insurance.

Buildings insurance is almost always an obligatory requirement from lenders when offering a mortgage to purchase a property as it offers a safeguard for their investment, but even if you own your property outright it would be advisable to have some sort of cover in place.

Buildings insurance will generally cover the structure of the property including roof, walls, windows and permanent fixtures and fittings and in some cases drives, patios and fences.

This cover will also include subsidence, but will often require the policy holder to pay a compulsory excess, normally the first £1,000.

The insurer will require the property to be kept well maintained inside and out and it is worth noting that damage caused by general wear and tear over a period of time is not often included.

Flat roofs on garages and extensions for instance are considered by many insurance companies to have a limited lifetime, usually around ten years maximum, but as every insurer is different and offer different levels of cover it is worth taking the time to compare home insurance products.

Contents insurance is slightly less complex in that it offers cover against accidental damage or theft of personal items and household goods within your home.

It will almost always include cover of permanent fixtures and fittings such as lighting, carpets and flooring as well as the more obvious items like television sets and computers.

Many insurers will base your contents insurance on the number of bedrooms that you have in the house, which will give an average figure that they base the cover on. However as many of us now have expensive gadgets like iPods, mobile devices and the like in the home it is advisable to sit down and work out exactly the amount of cover you personally require. The value of personal items alone will definitely surprise most of us.

If you wish to include cover for certain items of high value the insurer will require these items to be listed with values at the time of purchasing a policy and may even request a third party valuation before accepting your business.

Oddly enough, contents insurance will normally cover items that are damaged or stolen when being used out of the house but only if they are not covered on any other policy, so as always it is worth checking your insurer first before making any assumptions.

The ABI warns that darker evenings provide the cover that many opportunist criminals crave and the householder should take extra precautions to ensure that their property is safe from unwanted attention.

ABI spokesman Malcolm Tarling says; “You need to think about things like making sure your house gives the appearance of being occupied even when you’re out” and suggests the installation of security lights if none exist, while a gravel path or drive might alert property owners to an intruder on their land.

Good quality locks are highly recommended says Tarling, adding that industry-approved mortice locks that have been certified by an insurance provider could actually reduce the premium charged in some cases.

While we are encouraged to be vigilant during the darker nights of the year we should not become complacent during the summer months however, when there is more risk of us leaving windows ajar for instance.

Whatever precautions you take always ensure that you have adequate home insurance cover. Choosing a company like UIA Insurance will allow you to make savings by choosing a voluntary excess that suits you as well as saving money on combined buildings and contents insurance. They also offer a 15% saving simply by buying online.

This has led the insurer to predict that 2010 will be the second worst on record for Ecclesiastical who saw an increase of metal theft in 2008 when a record 1,382 claims were made in the same five month period of that year.

That spate of theft blamed primarily on the financial crisis at the time, cost the company £4.2million and led to warnings that premiums would increase unless increased security in insured buildings could be proven.

Whether that advice was heeded by Ecclesiastical’s clients is not clear, but once again as the crime increases the same message applies.

The worrying statistics are say Ecclesiastical linked to the scrap value prevailing at the time of theft, the higher the current value for scrap, the more robberies take place.

It is not just the traditional theft of lead from Church roofs that is involved with 20% of claims now involving schools and heritage properties.

home insurance

Many homeowners spend several years and thousands of pounds gradually improving their property and with summer only around the corner, now is the perfect time of year to get your home looking spic and span. It is important not to let all this hard work go to waste.

Like most things, your home is at risk and depending on where you live, these risks can be numerous. This is why home insurance is so important – should something untoward or unexpected happen to your house, you will be protected financially from the cost of any repairs.

Most property owners will understand that they cannot prevent all risk, but thankfully they can be afforded the peace of mind that home insurance offers. What kind of risks can you expect? Well, if you’re thinking of purchasing a new property, it is important to check if the house likely to experience flooding. According to the government, five million people in the UK are at risk from streams and rivers overflowing. Homeowners should ask their estate agent or check the Environment Agency’s online flood map, where a risk breakdown will be provided after you enter your postcode.

You only need to cast your mind back to the summer of 2007 to understand the damage that flooding can do. Tewkesbury, a small town in Gloucestershire, was effectively turned into an island after the nearby Severn and Avon rivers burst their banks, and those without home contents insurance lost all their possessions. Without savings, many were left homeless and unable to recoup their belongings. A similar situation was seen in Toll Bar in South Yorkshire, where homeowners had to be rescued from their homes in rigid inflatable boats.

Another common environmental risk is subsidence. This is characterised by a series of small cracks appearing in a property’s walls, and if nothing is done the problem can quickly escalate to the point where tens of thousands of pounds of remedial work is required. Homes most at risk are those in the south of England built on clay soil. Subsidence occurs after a spell of hot, dry weather, which causes all the water in the soil to be sucked out by plants, trees and bushes, forcing the clay to contract.

In the property business, this phenomenon is known as ‘differential leave’. It’s serious because it can lead to structural damage, although fortunately instances of subsidence have been rare over the past couple of years thanks to the unusually wet summers. Properties suffering from subsidence rarely collapse, but their foundations normally need to be strengthened – a procedure than can cost anywhere between £5,000 and £50,000.

Property owners with home insurance should check to see whether their policy covers subsidence, and if it doesn’t, you may wish to consider seeking the advice of a chartered surveyor. In addition to cracks, some of the warning signs include doors and windows becoming stuck for no obvious reason and rippling wallpaper when there is no obvious damp problem.

Worryingly, large numbers of people put off investing in home insurance, confident that their property is somehow immune from risk. What many don’t realise is that home insurance policies include three fundamental factors that, unless you’re a multi-millionaire, are crucial if something should go wrong, as the cost of repairs without the help of insurance are financially crippling at best and completely unaffordable at worst – which could mean that the home you spent so many years working on can no longer be yours. These factors are structural damage, liability and uninhabitable living expenses.

Structural damage, which can be caused by both flooding and subsidence, is a key part of a home insurance policy. An insurer can cover the cost of repairs that need to be undertaken in addition to any replacements such as doors, windows or floorboards. Fewer people are aware of liability insurance, which guarantees that anyone entering your property is covered should something unexpected happen. It sounds highly unlikely, but it is not unknown for homes to be damaged by aircraft, trains or vehicles, while many more are struck by lightning. Liability insurance also covers the costs of any lawsuits filed against a homeowner by a guest who may have suffered a personal injury as a result of one of these calamitous events.

Policies that include uninhabitable expenses are particularly important for homeowners living on a flood plain or close to a river. A home insurance policy can guarantee that any expenses incurred while not being able to reside at your property can be claimed back until the insured property is safe enough to move back in to.

Homeowners should also consider a few other factors related to their home insurance. Is the property located adjacent to a busy road or an accident-prone area? What material is the home constructed from? What type of area is the property located in – for example, is there lots of crime? Brick or concrete homes tend to benefit from cheaper home insurance compared to wood floors thanks to the greatly reduced fire risk.

Crime and burglaries are of particular concern to homeowners. While burglars are unlikely to damage your home structurally, apart from maybe forcing their way through a window or door, they will be intent on removing its most valuable contents. For this reason, it is vital to invest in home contents insurance. With the cost of technology having lowered over the last few years, more homes contain high-definition televisions, laptops, desktop computers and other expensive electrical equipment. It takes only a matter of minutes for a seasoned burglar to get their hands on your possessions, and once they’ve been taken, you can be sure of never seeing them again.

During 2005-06, the British Crime Survey recorded 733,000 offences relating to domestic burglary, which represented seven per cent of all crime reported in the poll. While 293,000 of these were attempts only, in 440,000 instances an offender managed to gain entry to a person’s home.

Don’t be caught out by the risks your home faces and invest in an appropriate home insurance policy. Not only will you have peace of mind, but you can alleviate the possibility of financial difficulty should something untoward happen to your home.

This ensures that should the building collapse and you can no longer live there or pay the mortgage, the lender is happy that their ‘investment’ in your home is safe as the insurance policy will pay out to have the property rebuilt.

Buildings insurance also allows the policy holder to claim for less dramatic damage to their property however and most people would consider it an essential cover to have if they own their own home.

The house that I own has a professionally built attic conversion that has all permissions and permits in place and was added to the house soon after it was built in the seventies. The flat attic extension roof is in line with the ridge of the standard roof.

This work had been carried out long before I purchased the property.  About eight years ago noticing the flat roof above my garage was in need of replacement I had a roofer replace both the garage and attic flat felt roofs.

It is impossible to see the flat roof on the attic without climbing across the tiles to the ridge, something I have never felt the need to do.

For eight years I have had no problems. I regularly check the garage roof as a guide to wear and tear. However two weeks ago after some severe but short gusts of wind the flat felt roof from the attic detached itself completely and landed in the back garden.

On the way down the heavy felt scratched the two double glazed windows and the PVC window frames. Total cost of the roof and window damage estimated at around £1700.

My Buildings insurance is with Nationwide and their first response on a Sunday evening at 7.30 pm was good. I was told that I could get someone out to cover the roof  and make it water tight  which was covered by my add on Emergency cover.

I was given a claim reference and told a loss adjuster would contact me next morning.  At mid-day Monday I had not received a call and had to call Nationwide and pay for the privilege of using their 0845 number (thats another story).  Predictably they did not recognise the claim number I had been given and had to start again with a surly representative who suggested that she doubted the insurance would cover me as it sounded like normal wear and tear.

The roofer I got out to make the area water tight suggested that the roof had been fine, the felt was in good condition and he suspected that the weather was to blame.

On the Wednesday when the loss adjuster arrived he looked at the damage, went onto the roof etc and then informed me that … you guessed it, I am not covered as in his view it is down to normal wear and tear. When questioned he agreed that the wind may have been the final straw, but in his opinion the damage had happened over a period of time.

When asked about the damage to the windows the loss adjuster from Imperial Consultants shook his head and said that I couldn’t claim as the roof that caused the damage was not covered by the insurance!!!

What are your experiences of Buildings Insurance claims, please let us know.

The Association of British Insurers (ABI) say that £639 million was paid out over the course of the first six months of 2009, a staggering £3.6 million each day for damage caused by fires.

The plague continues to grow and looks set to exceed the twelve month record set in 2008 when insurers recorded £1.3 billion losses to fire damage in the UK.

The ABI claim in their report ‘Tackling Fire: A Call For Action’ that arson accounts for over half of all commercial fires and tends to increase in times of recession. They say that socially deprived areas and schools are particularly vulnerable, with twenty schools a week currently suffering from some form of arson attack.

The report suggests that while the number of fires reported are falling the increase in large scale fires is increasingly putting lives at risk as well as the incredible financial burden on owners and insurance companies in these difficult times.