DIY leads to home insurance claims

DIY home improvement projects are leading to an increase in home insurance claims. But one insurance aggregator has warned that some insurance policies stipulate only professionally accredited tradesmen should carry out certain work.

The increase in DIY has been attributed to the growing popularity of home improvement TV programmes coupled with decreasing household incomes. Approximately 50 per cent of homeowners are now ‘doing it themselves’, but many of these projects end in disaster: 11 per cent will end up claiming on the home insurance policies.

A spokesman from confused.com Home Insurance commented: “with the economy so fragile, people’s finances are under more pressure…..Therefore more people have turned to ways of saving money. It’s worth checking that you are not inadvertently rendering your insurance invalid by failing to read the small print.”

The aggregator also reports that homeowners in Scotland and the West Midlands are most likely to do their own home improvements. Of all UK homeowners surveyed, 31 per cent had experienced DIY mishaps.