How Social Networking Affects Home Insurance

How social networking affects home insurance

Whether you’re bonkers about Bebo, fanatical for Facebook, or mad about MySpace, chances are you’re part of the social networking revolution. To be ‘in’ with in crowd today it’s vital to keep all of your friends updated on your status, upload your latest pictures and link to your top tunes. However, adding to your friends list could come at a price.

It’s not just your best buddies that might be prowling the internet looking for a friendly face - it’s also become a shopping ground for opportunist thieves. Recently, Legal & General home insurance collaborated with reformed burglar Michael Fraser to produce a report entitled The Digital Criminal, which looks at the use of social media by the public and criminals.

Why home insurance premiums could rise

According to the report, many social networking users are simply giving out too much information on their profiles, which can then be used by burglars to produce a list of targets.

The research found that 38 per cent of Facebook users publicise when they are going away on holiday - with 33 per cent going as far as to say they would be away for the weekend. This gives thieves an open invitation knowing that you will not be at home for a specified period.

Of course it is possible to limit who gets to see this information, as all of the leading social networking sites offer various privacy settings. However, an experiment conducted as part of the research found that when 100 random ‘friend’/‘follow’ requests were sent out on Facebook/Twitter, acceptance rates reached 13 per cent and 92 per cent respectively. This means that users are allowing people they don’t even know to read all about their personal lives.

Michael Fraser dubbed the process ‘internet shopping’ on behalf of the thieves. By using a site such as Google Street View, the thief can scope out the home of somebody known to be absent in the near future.

This carelessness with personal details online could therefore contribute to a surge in domestic burglaries - according to the Home Office, domestic burglaries increased by four per cent in the three months to September 2008, the largest increase in seven years, and this year could see similar increases as the recession continues.

If you’re not too concerned about the threat of burglary because you have home insurance in place, then perhaps you should think again. Making a claim on a home insurance policy will cause a premium to rise unless you have no-claims discount protection - and even this protection can be limited based on the size of a claim.

How to protect your home insurance premiums

If you don’t want your home insurance premiums to rise due to a burglary claim, then the message is simple - think twice before you publicize your information.

The message isn’t restricted to social networking, either. It’s not unknown for burglars to listen into conversations on the street or in a public house, and you should also be careful not to leave an answer phone message stating that you’re away because you never know when you might get a cold call from an opportunist thief.

Don’t be negligent about your home security when you’re away from home, either. Ask a friend or neighbor that you trust to collect your mail every day, put out the wheelie bin on rubbish collection day and, if you’re really comfortable with them, perhaps they can even enter your property to open and close curtains each morning and night to give the impression that you’re at home. Remember to cancel newspaper and milk deliveries, and don’t leave out boxes that contain recently bought items as they will indicate to a burglar that you have expensive possessions inside. Make sure that tools and any items that could be used to break into a property are stored away, and use a suitable padlock on your garden shed and garage.

Enhancing your home security could even help lower your home insurance premiums. Several insurers will offer discounts if you fit approved window and door locks; doors to British Standard PAS 24-1; and NACOSS alarm systems. Give your insurer a call and ask for recommendations before installing any new devices to ensure you’ll pick up a discount.

If your home insurance provider doesn’t reward you with savings then it might be worth shopping around for one that does - use a comparison website to compare the deals available.