Travel Insurance

Summertime can be a huge buzz but also creates season-specific possible claims scenarios! If deciding to become a newbie beekeeper, for instance, ensure you have adequate public liability insurance in place. If keeping hives on a public allotment, you really must also set your bees’ flight path correctly, preventing your neighbours from being engulfed by a swarm, and ensuring that you force your bees to fly, at take-off, above six-feet high!

Summer is also when pesky wasps could fancy time in your loft. But did you know one insurer has reported a £26,700 claim relating to this problem? 14 Such high wasp related claims typically relate to human error (and fires) that occur when smoking

them out!

In a shocking case last year, a disposable barbecue, left outside on bricks on decking, also proved a fire hazard. Despite having been used 8 hours before, it was still the source of a fire that burnt an entire house down overnight.

If you’re lucky enough to have a pool and decide to have a party, do remember all the slips and trips that can happen around pools, and that private parties can be protected with insurance cover, just as with public events. Do also make a ‘note to self’ to fill your pool before diving in!

Of course, holidays are a great source of strange claims each year. In Malaysia, naughty monkeys stole a couple’s clothes and left them strewn across the rain forest; whilst in Cornwall, little monkeys of another kind buried their parents’ video camera in the sand and couldn’t remember where! All insureds claimed successfully.

Do be aware that falling coconuts kill 150 people a year15, leading to hospitalisation, even if you escape that fate. The solution? Don’t sit under coconut trees! Also be aware, if cruising the high seas, that people go missing from cruise ships each year, often presumed to have fallen overboard, so be careful on deck.

Wherever you travel, be sun aware and realise that millions of Brits suffer sunburn annually, which may be funny in small doses, but serious sunburn can lead to many complications that can be extremely painful, even leading to hospital visits. Ensure your travel policy provides you with the right factor protection.