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Top Tip To Deter Holiday Home Thefts

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Ever increasing competition in the furnished holiday let market has led to the majority of holiday homes being furnished with high quality decor, furniture and audio-visual equipment. Whilst thankfully thefts from holiday homes, either by guests or opportunistic thieves are uncommon, it is sensible to take reasonable precautions to protect your property. 

Crimestoppers Property ProtectorTM is Crimestoppers first product to further their crime-fighting goals, assisting the prevention and detection of crime and the return of stolen property to the rightful owner. To celebrate its launch, Crimestoppers are offering our holiday home insurance blog visitors £10.00 off the product’s recommended retail price of £34.99. Postage and packing is an extra £1.95.

Read more about Crimestoppers Property Protector Works here…

Help keep your Holiday Home Insurance premiums affordable by detering theft from your let property, order your Crimestoppers Property ProtectorTM today. Place your order here…

  

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Ride the buy-to-let wave! A record number of us are buying a holiday home to rent out

August is a month for wishful thinking. Outside the estate agents’ windows in attractive tourist towns around Britain, incomers in their shorts ogle properties, longing to make their summer getaway into something more permanent.

Thanks to the general economic uncertainty — not to mention continuing difficulties with mortgages — few will be likely to follow through. Even so, in its latest research Knight Frank estate agents says second homes have reached record levels in the UK, with Cornwall the most popular location. Read on here

Are you considering purchasing a holiday home to let in the UK? If so you’ll need advice on holiday home insurance. We are happy to help so please feel free to contact us for a quote as soon as you have a holiday home letting property in mind | www.boshers.co.uk/holiday-home-insurance  

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Free impartial advice on energy saving for home owners

Are you considering energy saving measures for your home or holiday home property? Installing extra insulation in your attic or cavity walls, maybe installing renewable energy gadgets such as solar panels for your heating? The Energy Saving Trust is a non-profit organisation that provides free and impartial advice on energy saving.

If you are considering generating your own hot water or electricity using solar panels or even a wind turbine at your home or holiday home, do check with your home insurance or holiday home insurance provider that you have the correct cover and adequate sums insured.   

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Making The Web Work For Holiday Home Owners

If you are considering purchasing a second home in the UK to run as a holiday let business, you will find this informative article `Making the web work for you‘ in Holiday Villas And Cottages Magazine of interest.

Read the full article here

In order to protect your property and your guests, selecting the right holiday home insurance for your new purchase is very important. Once you have a property in mind we happy to provide you with a quotation without obligation.  

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VisitEngland Launches Free Guide

VisitEngland has launched the most comprehensive business case for accessible tourism in England. The booklet entitled `At Your Service‘ provides advice on a lucrative market worth over £2 billion. If you make adaptions to your holiday home to make them more accessible for people with disabilities, please consider increasing your buildings and contents sum insured on your holiday home insurance policy to allow for the costs of the improvements. If the adaptions involve building works please contact your holiday home insurance broker to inform them of your intentions so they may ensure the correct cover is in place both during and after the renovations.   

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C500 Key Safe

C500 – The UK’s first Police approved key safe

One benefit of our holiday home insurance policy is that the comprehensive cover provided to holiday home owners accommodates the use of Key Safes to make it more convenient for guest changeovers. All our underwriters ask is that you take sensible precautions such as those covered in our previous blog post, You, Your Holiday Home Insurance and Key Safes.

As part of our service to holiday home owners, we like to inform you of products, services, risk advice and legislative changes of interest to you as a furnished holiday let owner. Whilst we are not in a position to directly endorse the C500 key safe ourselves we were suitably impressed with it to warrant this blog, with the proviso that other key safes are available..

Read on for details of the C500 – The UK’s first Police approved key safe.

For your guests, gaining access into your holiday home is often a challenge. A key safe can provide immediate access for authorised visitors using a unique combination. This guarantees secure access 24/7, allowing visitors to arrive and depart whenever they need to. It’s why 86% of Local authorities use this method to deliver care into the homes of vulnerable people they support.

Police Approved – Key safe designs can vary greatly, not just in terms of looks but also levels of security.

Supra UK were concerned that some key safe products actually put people’s homes and vulnerable people at risk. This concern prompted Supra to carry out extensive market research to understand what customers wanted from a key safe. It highlighted that 80% of people said that the most important key safe accreditation was gaining Police approval. This was a tough challenge but essential to meet customer requirements.

Supra are absolutely delighted to announce that the Supra C500 KeySafe ™ has now achieved LPS (Loss Prevention Standard) 1175 level 1 security rating; this is the same level of security provided by a domestic front door. Gaining this independent security rating then enabled the C500 to be Police approved, through the Secured by Design (SbD) scheme.

This makes the C500 and only key safe on the UK market to be approved by the Police.

What experts think of the C500 KeySafe:

“Now that the C500 KeySafe has achieved LPS and; SbD accreditation this should be the only key safe that is specified – it is a very good product”

Peter Bennett, Thames Valley Police

“We have no hesitation in saying that out of the five key safe products evaluated, the Supra C500 is the only key safe worth considering.”

Dr. Kevin Doughty – Centre of Usable Home Technology (CUHTEC)

Supra are confident that the C500 KeySafe is the most attack resistant on the UK market. If you are in any doubt on the suitability of a particular key safe, please contact your local Crime Prevention Officer.

Find out more at www.keysafe.co.uk

Find out more about holiday home insurance from Boshers Ltd by clicking here.

C500 key safe | longer screws for rendered walls

Please note that with effect from September 2014 The Key Safe Company have made a small but important change to the installation fixings supplied with the C500 police approved key safe. They are now supplied with 60mm long self-tapping masonary screws, these longer screws are more suitable for fixing through rendered walls, negating the need to knock the render off of the wall before fixing. Find out more about the C500 improvements to key safe installation fixings.

Holiday home owners considering a key safe will also find this blog post of interest: You, Your Holiday Home Insurance and Key Safes.

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Boshers Ltd | Holiday Home Insurance Specialists Named One of Constant Contacts 2010 Email Marketing All Stars

Holiday Home Insurance Specialist, Boshers Ltd has received the 2010 All Star Award from Constant Contact®, Inc., the trusted marketing advisor to more than 400,000 small organizations worldwide. Boshers is one of Constant Contact’s 2010 top performers and most prolific user of its email marketing tools.

Boshers Marketing Director, Mark Lavington, commented; “We’re happy to be recognized by Constant Contact for our use of email marketing tools to update our Holiday Home Insurance clients and prospects.” 

A BIG THANK YOU to all of our holiday home owners who have engaged in our newsletters!” 

To access back issues of our newsletters please click – Holiday Home Owner Newsletters

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Theft Of Heating Oil

Theft of heating oil from holiday homes

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The cost of heating oil has increased significantly recently and this has resulted in more thefts of oil from holiday homes and elsewhere.

The first indication that a theft has taken place is usually when a holiday home’s heating system fails to work. The assumption is often made that the boiler is at fault, but regrettably the problem is often simply no oil. Thefts vary from small amounts being stolen, to the whole tank being drained. The methods used by the thieves can be very crude, including drilling or punching holes in the side of the tank and then filling jerry cans. Resulting pollution of the ground and water by oil is a costly business and can lead to your property being unavailable for holiday letting to guests whilst the environmental damage is put right. It’s not hard to see how a few large claims like this can result in higher premiums for all to cover the costs.

Theft of heating oil from holiday homes

So what can holiday home owners do to prevent such losses?

  • Monitor the level of oil in your tank regularly and ask your housekeeper, caretaker and/or a friendly neighbour to do the same in your absence.
  • Conceal the location of the tank by using hedging, fencing or walling.
  • Securely lock doors at all times if the tank is situated within a building.
  • Install security lighting to cover the tank if the holiday home is overlooked from nearby buildings.
  • Ask nearby residents to be vigilant and report any suspicious activity to the police.
  • Encourage high occupancy rates, which reduces the time available to thieves.
  • Padlock the valve. This may not always be the correct course of action, as thieves may smash the valve completely, but it can deter a less determined thief.
  • Install an alarm devices which creates an alert if the oil level suddenly drops or if the lock is attacked.
If you are unfortunate enough to have a theft of oil at your holiday home, ensure that you report it to the police immediately and inform your holiday home insurance provider of the incident. Check your policy carefully to ensure that you have sufficient cover for loss of oil and adhere to any inspection warranties.

Follow this link for posts similar to theft of heating oil from holiday homes and other useful resources for holiday home owners

For further information on UK holiday home insurance visit the website page most relevant to you:

Thank you for reading `theft of heating oil from holiday homes‘.

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Holiday Home Owner Winter Maintenance Checklist

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Boshers advises UK holiday home owners to use quieter periods, such as the Winter months to carry out essential maintenance checks so their properties are protected from inclement weather and in tip top order for the following letting season.

Mark Lavington, says: “Many weather related insurance claims could be avoided if holiday home owners were to give their holiday letting properties a winter health check before the worst of the weather hits”. Furthermore there’s a `duty of care’ for owners to ensure that their guests’ safety has been considered.”

The Boshers holiday home insurance team have compiled a `Winter Maintenance Checklist for holiday Home Owners’ as a useful aid. A free copy can be downloaded from www.boshers.co.uk/holiday-home-insurance or requested by phoning 01237 429444 or emailing cottages@boshers.co.uk

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Holiday Home Insurance Top Ten Blogs From 2010

Holiday Home Insurance Top Ten Blogs From 2010. Listed below are our top ten holiday home insurance blogs from 2010. Full of informative holiday home insurance tips and hints for furnished holiday let owners in the UK.

Brought to you by specialist Holiday Home Insurance broker Boshers Ltd.  

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