Aerial view of coastal holiday homes.

Holiday home insurance

We won't be beaten on price

We guarantee to beat your new quote or renewal premium from any other insurer when you take out a new landlord policy with us.

New policies only. Cover on an equivalent basis to ours. Qualifying criteria apply. Terms & Conditions.

We're proud to have won Best Landlord Insurance Provider at the What Mortgage Awards 2023.

What's different about Direct Line holiday home insurance?

  • Build your own policy.
  • No admin fees if you need to amend your policy.
  • Interest-free instalments in the first year.
    0% APR. Over 18's only, subject to eligibility.
  • A dedicated claims handler, should you need it.
  • Access to 24/7 Helpline provided by DAS Legal Expenses Insurance Limited. For uncommon and certain country-specific areas of law, you'll be referred to specialist advisors available Mon-Fri, 9am-5pm, excluding bank holidays.

What is holiday home insurance?

Having a holiday home can be a great investment or provide handy extra income from a second home, but you need to make sure you have the correct insurance.

Most holiday homes won't be covered under standard home insurance because the risks of a holiday home are seen as greater than your main residence that's occupied throughout the year. A holiday home will be rented out to paying guests or could be left unoccupied for long periods.

Our holiday home insurance lets you build cover that's right for you, offering financial protection against fire, flooding, burglary and injury of a guest or employee.

You can also cover yourself against lost rent for an additional premium should you be unable to rent our your holiday home because of an insured incident.

What does holiday home insurance cover?

  • Properties rented out by you or holiday letting companies
  • Properties rented to third parties, friends or family (signed letting agreement must be used when rented to third parties)
  • Properties with facilities such as saunas, hot tubs or swimming pools
  • Properties built of brick, stone or concrete

Landlord insurance covers:

The following cover types are included in our holiday home insurance, as standard:

  • Buildings Insurance, including Boiler Cover.
  • New-for-old Contents Insurance, including replacement locks following theft of keys from the property.
  • Leaseholders fixtures and fittings cover - are you a leasehold landlord of a flat being let as a holiday home? For damage to permanent internal fixtures that are not insured under a freeholders' building policy.
  • Glass and Sanitary Ware.
  • Public Liability cover of £2m, with the option to increase.
  • Damage to flooring that covers entire floor areas, such as carpets, lino and laminate. Standard cover up to £5,000 with the option to increase.
  • Alternative Accommodation cover: We'll pay to re-house your holidaymakers following an insured event such as a flood or fire makes the property uninhabitable, subject to policy limits.
  • Document services and 24/7 Helpline provided by DAS Legal Expenses Insurance Limited. For uncommon and certain country-specific areas of law, you'll be referred to specialist advisors available Mon-Fri, 9am-5pm, excluding bank holidays.

For an additional premium, you can add any of these covers to your holiday home insurance policy:

  • Legal Expenses - covers the cost of defending your legal rights. Includes debt recovery, contract disputes, legal defence and Tax Protection. The following elements of cover of dilapidation & maintenance, repossession, rent recovery and nuisance & eviction of squatters are not currently available under Legal Expenses for holiday homes.
  • Loss of Rent - this covers lost income if your property becomes uninhabitable following an insured event, such as a fire or a flood.
  • Accidental Damage for buildings and/or contents when you've insured them.
  • Employers' Liability - this covers you if an employee makes a claim against you for a work-related injury.
  • Theft by guests.
  • Malicious Damage by your guests.
  • Subsidence cover - covers you in the event the buildings suffer from subsidence, heave or landslip. Subject to acceptance criteria and any previous Subsidence claim.
  • Personal Accident cover pays up to a maximum benefit of £50,000 in respect of Death or a weekly benefit of £250 if temporary total disablement to insured persons between the ages of 16 -75 if they are unable to work because they've been injured in an accident, whether in a business or personal capacity.
  • You can extend your policy to help protect your holiday property against damage caused by acts of terrorism. We'll cover you up to the maximum sum insured on your policy for buildings, contents and/or loss of rental income. Acts of terrorism are defined as damage caused by someone acting on behalf of, or in connection with, any organisation which uses force or violence to overthrow or influence the UK government.

    Terrorism cover is not available for properties that are located in the Channel Islands, Isle of Man or Northern Ireland.

    Terrorism insurance is an optional cover so an additional premium will apply.

    You can include Terrorism cover to your policy by either processing this online or calling us on 0345 301 5066 when you take out your policy with us or at renewal as it cannot be added to your policy mid-term.

If you take out a policy with us, you can also take advantage of the following benefits:

  • 0% interest if you pay by instalments in the first year
    Subject to eligibility, over 18's only.
  • No admin fees if you make changes or add further properties to your policy.
  • Add up to 15 properties on one policy, with one renewal date.
  • Access to your own specialist claims handler should the worst happen.
estate agent giving woman keys.

Looking for something different?

We also provide tailored to your needs B&B insurance and landlord insurance.

Policy documents

When you get a quote, we'll send you a personalised policy document that shows the cover you've chosen.

These can also be found when you log into My Account.

Here you can find examples of our latest landlord insurance documents which show the main covers we offer, plus exclusions.

To make sure you download the right document, please select the dates that cover the period you bought or renewed your policy and the latest version of the document will be displayed.

Frequently asked questions

No, we only cover holiday home within the United Kingdom.

We cover holiday homes built of standard construction, so built of brick, stone or concrete and roofed with slate, tiles or concrete. We currently do not cover static or mobile caravans.

Whether to family, friends or paying guests as the property owner you have a number of legal responsibilities and duties to ensure that the property is safe so our holiday home policy comes with £2M Public Liability insurance as standard. This limit can be increased subject to an additional premium.

Public liability covers the sums you are legally liable to pay for compensation and claimants costs and expenses following accidental bodily injury to a third party or accidental damage to third party property arising from your activity as a holiday home business.

Cover is based on you being negligent and does not cover intentional actions.

No there are no minimum security conditions such as having 5 lever mortice locks rather than a 3 lever mortice lock on the policy.

If you have selected the optional cover of Accidental Damage, we do cover damage by pets but there is a general policy exclusion of damage caused by 'scratching'. Accidental damage caused by the pet as a one off incident such as chewing, tearing or if the pet were unwell so vomited or fouling would be covered. It doesn't cover incidents where the pet has repeatedly caused damage as this is not a one off accident.

If you create an inventory of the items in your holiday home you can allocate a cost to replace them as new to get a total of how much you should insure for. This may take a little time to begin with but will be easy to update and manage going forward. Remember to keep the sum insured up to date when you buy new items or upgrade items in your holiday home. Keeping receipts and photos is also a good discipline and helps support any claims that you submit.

You could use a contents calculator as a helpful tool as there is one on directline.com used for our Home customers see the link below. Please be aware that this is for people's main residences and not holiday homes, so do not include items that are not covered such as valuables. Please be aware the bullet points about limits and cover relate to the Direct Line Home policy and not the holiday home insurance policy.

https://www.directline.com/home-cover/contents-calculator

If you select our Buildings cover, you'll automatically get Equipment Breakdown cover. This pays to repair or replace your boiler, irrespective of its age, if it breaks down, but excludes wear and tear. Read more about our boiler insurance cover.

To make a claim, you need to arrange for a boiler engineer to visit your property and assess the boiler. They need to submit their report to us, so we can assess whether the claim is covered. If it is, we'll reimburse you for the repair/replacement costs, including parts, labour and call out charges, less the £200 excess.

This cover is not a maintenance contract - it doesn't cover servicing or Gas Safety Certificates (CP12).

The rebuild cost is the total cost of the work needed to completely rebuild your property to the condition it was in before it was destroyed beyond repair. This includes costs for materials, labour, professional fees, debris removal and VAT (if applicable). This is not the property's market value.

If you're unsure, you can get the rebuild cost from a qualified surveyor or use the ABI Public Rebuild Calculator.

It's your responsibility to make sure the insured rebuilding cost is enough to cover the cost of rebuilding the property.

The property must be used solely as a Holiday home and not used for business use and we don't cover Holiday Homes where any form of non-motorised or motorised cycle or vehicle is provided (e.g. pedal cycles, scooters, Segway's, quad bikes, motorcycles or cars).

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  • Saturday 9am - 3pm
  • Sunday Closed

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