Does your home insurance covers your garden?
We Britons spend more than £4 billion a year tending to our gardens, but most of us forget to make sure our home insurance has it covered.
Did you know?
Around one in seven gardens is targeted every year by thieves, and more than 5,000 homeowners a week have things stolen from their garden.
Plus, it's not just the odd garden gnome that gets pinched - some people have reported their ornamental stone lions and even rare trees have gone missing.
So what can you do to prevent it? Well, here are a couple of tips to help protect yourself from green-fingered thieves:
- If thieves can get into your garden easily then they will – make sure fences, sheds and gates are in good repair
- Security lighting can help and low energy dusk to dawn lighting is environmentally friendly
- If you leave valuables outside make sure they are secured in position or filled with heavy gravel to make them hard to lift
- Cut back overgrown areas so thieves cannot hide in them
- Prickly plants will make it painful for them and gravel on paths and driveways will let you know they're coming and put them off
- Upgrade your home burglar alarm to cover the shed
- Make sure your insurance covers contents kept in a shed
- Ask your neighbours to keep an eye on your shed as well as your house and do the same for them.
However, no matter how much you try to protect your garden, there may be that one time the burglars manage to win. In that case, you need to make sure you're protected. Home insurance policies can cover gardens but do they cover everything you need?
Virgin Money contents insurance includes cover of up to £1,000 for items in the garden - excluding bedding plants, trees, shrubs and grass. So if Gordon the Garden Gnome goes walkies, you're covered.
Plus, Virgin Money Home insurance covers glass and mirrors, valuables up to the value of £1,500 for a single item or collection, and replacement external locks too in case your keys are pinched.
