Home insurance – are you covered for pest guests?
Published: 8 July 2009 By MoneyhighStreet Staff Leave a Comment
Pest guests in our home are pretty popular, the furry or buzzy type that is, but does your home insurance cover you for these unwanted visitors?
Home insurance is taken out by many but as Confused.com found out some 75% of people don’t know whether their insurance provides cover against unwanted pests.
This is not so surprising as insurance providers don’t provide a standard level of pest cover with their insurance – it varies from provider to provider.
You can compare home insurance across different providers using a comparison website, such as Confused.com, Gocompare.com or Moneysupermarket.com.
Head of insurance at Confused.com, Darren Black, commented ‘It is now a common thing for homeowners to experience unwanted guests in and around their home. Species range from the dreaded rats nest through to wasps and bugs.’
He added ‘Some insurance providers will offer an extermination service of pest nests but, it is an add on, and does not come as standard.’
Some home insurance policies state that a home must be ‘unsafe’ for occupancy as a result of infestation, others that the infestation must be in the house itself.
It really is a case of checking your policy and making sure the cover you have meets your needs.
Top of the list of frequently sighted species are bees and wasps, followed by pigeons, mice, squirrels and rats.
Confused.com suggest a few tips to keep the pests away, including:
- Seal up gaps around pipes and in brickwork
- Repair broken drain covers – rats can come up from the sewers
- Manage your waste – don’t leave plastic bags on the ground as the smell will attract such as wasps, rats and foxes.
