Seeing flood warnings and people recovering from floods on the news is becoming a regularoccurrence. Cumbria has been the latest place to be hit by flash floods this year. With climate change having quite a large effect at the moment, the amount of homes at risk from flooding is expected to rise.

The Environment Agency is currently predicting that 1 out of every 6 homes is at risk of flooding. With this number expected to rise next year, no doubt we will be seeing even more flood reports on the news.

One of the biggest problems people in areas at risk of flooding are facing is having to buy home insurance, especially if it’s insurance for holiday homes. Because it can cost anywhere up to £40,000 to insurers after a flood claim, you need to factor in expensive insurance when buying any property. Fortunately, there are resources online where you can find out whether your home is at risk.

If you are currently living, or are looking to buy a property in England or Wales, you can visit the Environment Agency’s website where they list flood maps of the UK. If you are a Scottish resident, you can visit the Scottish Environment Protection Agency website for more flood informaton.

If you do own a home or are going to buy a home in a flood risk area, getting your insurance won’t be a simple task. You’ll generally find that as soon as your home has been flooded, your premiums or excesses will rise. You may even find that you are refused a policy renew due to your house being in an area at risk of flooding.

With each flood claim costing insurers around £20,000 to £40,000, you should be prepared to see excesses of aup to £30,000. This is the reason why you should add any expensive insurance costs onto house prices when you are looking to buy a home. Getting second homes insurance can result in even more problems. Due to you leaving the property empty for most of the year, you have to watch for exclusions and high excesses.

I guess this wouldn’t be a problem if you were looking for Spanish house insurance.

Owners of holiday homes here in the UK that rent their property out for a large proportion of the year are expected to be hit by a stealth tax. Around 60,000 holiday home owners will be affected by the new taxes, wth each one being charged an extra £4000 every year.

The stealth taxes will hit those who offer their house for atleast 140 days each year. The holiday home also has to be rented out for atleast 70 of those 140 days that it’s available. I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw some people renting their houses out for 139 days a year.

The new taxes will be coming into force because, according to the Treasury, the tax rules at the moment break European laws. This is because current holiday home owners are able to receive tax reductions on certain things because they are classed as traders. The new tax laws will mean that they have to pay more taxes as they will now be classes as investors.

Although this isn’t good news for holiday home owners, it is good news for the Government. Due to the large number of home owners being affected, the Government look to make around £20 million each year from the new taxes. Despite the Government making this extra £20 million, it could prove to be worse for the Government than first appears.

This new stealth tax won’t come as good news for holiday home owners. Many already pay high amounts for things like maintenance and holiday cottage insurance. Now due to holiday home owners being charged more, therefore making less profits, many holiday home owners will be forced to close down. According to analysts, the resulting action of the stealth tax could cost the tourism business over £200 million. Not only will money be lost from a reduced amount of tourists, but jobs will also be lost with the increased amount of closing holiday homes. Yet more bad news for the current recession.

If you’re trying to find insurance for holiday homes based in the UK, or maybe overseas property insurance for your holiday home abroad, Schofields is the place to go.

It might be all of the financial troubles here in the UK. Even more folks are searching for a second home that they can use for cheaper vacations or to let out during the rest of the unused year. A lot of people have indeed managed to escape the UK and jet off to sunnier climates by buying overseas property.

Choosing to follow this route is becoming even easier, no matter what age group you are, you can still buy new property or even move abroad, however, whatever you do, you will still need to protect your new investment. Finding a company that will give cost effective cover for second home insurance and overseas property insurance isn’t as easy and can often be more costly than you might imagine.

Searching for second home insurance that suits your needs can be an expensive and tiring chore. That’s due to the fact that these second homes could be left unoccupied for extended periods, especially during winter with the associated risks of burst pipes and freezing damage. Even if you are able to overcome those problems, it can still become stressful when the property is damaged by the current occupiers.

If you do obtain cover you will probably find that most holiday home or buy to let insurance policies have restrictions in the small print. Unless you comply absolutely to the letter with security and occupancy requirements, you may be shocked to find your insurance is invalid when you make a claim. Although they may be hard to find, there are some providers out there that understand that as it is a second home, it won’t be occupied all year round.  

Because of this reason, there are some policies available that won’t end up leaving you with no water or electricity as they have no restrictions or exclusions in the small print. In the end, if you do decide to rent out your new property, those policies also come with extra things like protection against your content if it is damaged by the current guests.