Results from a study have indicated that parents should make sure that they have sufficient house and contents insurance to cover the summer school holidays. The study, conducted by Sheilas Wheels home insurance has indicated that children cause a staggering £0.5billion worth of damage to British homes a year.

Furthermore, the study found that a quarter of children damaged, or broken a piece of electrical equipment in the home and this causing parents to spending a approximately £550million per year to get the items repaired or replace those beyond repair.

On average, children cause roughly £190 in damages to electrical items like computers, games consoles and digital cameras and that a fifth of the nations parents are forced to make a claim on their home and contents insurance for the damage their children cause

A leading spokeswomen for the insurers home insurance department explained that school holidays are the most common time for children to break items and cause claims as it is the period where they are at home the most or have access to the electrical goods and that this can lead to potentially hundreds and hundred of pounds of damage to the home equipment.

This claim from esure home insurance has discovered that the average student brings nearly £1,500 of their belongings to halls of residence or student homes when the begin their courses, including laptops, iPods, T.V’s and Printers.

Despite this astonishing figure, a quarter of students parents do not think about taking out house insurance for their children’s belongings during their studies. This is further emphasized by the fact that students are one of the largest targets of burglaries and break-ins.

A senior director for the firm, has been quoted as saying: “It is very important that parents make sure they have sufficient contents cover in place to protect their child’s belongings - either by checking whether it’s included in their current policy or taking out separate insurance.”

Furthermore, Asda Financial Services expressed that those students who intend to take expensive bikes should ensure that they are covered by their home insurance cover as many bikes are left in communal lock ups in halls of residents that a regular targets for thieves.

They say that since the popularity of celebrity chefs have entered our lives on the TV, more extreme utensils and ideas have entered the standard kitchen; like blow torches, getting chefs who don’t know what they are doing in to trouble.

Adventurous chefs trying out new recipes in the kitchen have attributed towards 14 per cent of accidents resulting in damaged kitchens in some way.

73% per cent of respondents to eSure said that they aren’t particularly good in the kitchen, bit still attempt very complex recipes or techniques. eSure estimate that and high £5 billion of household damage has been caused as a result.

Those among the most common culprits of damage are deep fat frying, fast chopping, skewering, steaming and tenderising meat.

The two classics for damage are the roasting of peppers and or browning the top of crème brûlée at dinner parties to impress guests. In fact, 37 per cent of amateur chefs said they would get their paint stripping blow torch out of the shed to prepare the above dishes.

Scarily, a poor percentage of 30 only had some form of fire prevention device in the kitchen, like a fire blanket or fire extinguisher.

A benchmarking firm also carried out their research and found many house insurance websites didn’t actually even help the consumer with what they were looking for. This meant the industry as a whole only got an average score of 47 per cent.

Also amongst the findings were the behaviours of the consumers and their browsing habits. Just over half of consumers were searching for house insurance companies by brand name. Around 40 per cent used search engines like Google to find the best provider, and about a third utilised a price comparison sites.

The old fashioned route of the telephone was still used by 22 per cent of consumers when attempting to get the best deal, but still trailing a long way behind online activity.

Impressively, Lloyds TSB were the site with the highest rating of 52%, closely followed on 50% by Churchill, Norwich Union and More than.

Those surveyed were also questioned about what researching methods they found most useful, with a fifth choosing price comparison sites, 19% opting for looking at individual websites and only 7% saying the telephone was best.

Fascinatingly enough, many websites that were affiliated with comparison sites received poor scores.

Other notable performances were:

- Most quotes was Lloyds TSB, on 59%.

- Best sales support from More Than, on 65%.

- Norwich Union and Kwik Fit tied for best site utility (searching facilities and ease of navigation) on 77%.

- The best customer support was provided by the AA, on 42%.

It was also found that about a third of consumers had purchased their last house insurance via the internet and only 13 per cent actually going through the branch.

Also, an insight in to future trends was that over half of those who participated in the research said they would use the Internet for finding them thei ideal house insurance in the future.

This is a worryingly high figure especially as the British economy has a lot of disposable income and is one where we like to splash out on expensive items. The average British household commonly have TV’s worth over £500, gaming consoles worth over £300, laptops and PC’s worth over £1500, not to mention other music and home entertainment systems, musical instruments and jewellery worth over £15,000!

To cover items totalling to the region of £40k, a relatively small £45 is needed (on average), making it well worth your while. However, some deals are better than others in what they offer and the price, so it is still worth comparing prices on the market to get the most out of your money.

With contents insurance, the problem comes because it is not actually the law, so people think it is a good way to safe some money each month. However, in the long run it could well be the least financially option to take.

As well as the house insurance with contents, a bit of common sense should be used with things like locking your door and your windows and no sign of expensive items should be left in view from the outside, i.e. shut curtains, don’t leave packaging of expensive items outside.

The deal is 12 months insurance for the price of just 9 and the deal is happening between the 25th and the 26th May, but must buy the aforementioned together. As well as this, if bought online, a further saving of 10% can be knocked off the price. There is also a no-claims discount which can go up to 30%, as well as the bonus of accidental damage cover being included.

Neil Lard, Sainsbury’s house insurance manager, says it is important for customers to shop around the market and see what offers are available and said on the matter: “Quality cover such as unlimited buildings insurance doesn’t have to be expensive and although premiums have been rising, by shopping around and taking advantage of discounts such as ours, there are significant savings to be made.”

With this advice in mind, it might be a wise idea to check the comparison site AsRecommended. They differ from price comparison sites because they show you offers, as opposed to actual comparisons on policy offers.

The contents system for residents will be offered to the housing associations and local authorities themselves, though out the whole of the United Kingdom.

Through this product, it is hoped lodgers will be able to take on contents insurance more easily. The main problem at the moment is that many residents of the housing association do not pick the appropriate house insurance for their home, as they find it hard to meet monthly or annual payments. Zurich can make sure and provide the correct amount of cover, as their premiums will be worked out using data for the number of bedrooms in a property, and will include an option for cash payment on a weekly basis.

Due to the fact Landlords traditionally only insure the buildings themselves, residents will not be required to calculate an overall value for their home contents, which in turn means they will not uninsured themselves.

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