Today I’m happy to show off a thing that I’ve been working on these last few weeks. Having done some reading into home ownership and insurance for an article, I got to thinking about the relationship that people have with protecting their properties and how it might vary across age groups, location and ownership situation. So with this in mind, coupled with a hunger for some good numbers, I surveyed a group of 250 people across the UK, with the help of the lovely people at OnePoll. The questions I polled were designed to gain an idea of how our attitudes to property and insurance differ between a number of variables, including age, location, and where they sit on the property ladder.
Having received the data back from the pollsters (and feeling like a kid on Christmas morning when I got the email), I thought I’d use this article to try and call out some of the more interesting numbers from the poll and try to and make sense of why we might have seen some of these numbers come up. I will saw at this point that it feels strange being able to present you, the reader, with some good solid numbers on home ownership. It’s making me realise how far Spend It Like Beckham has come in these last few years. Here’s what I found, before I start blubbering.
People in the older brackets, living in the North West were more likely to experience flooding and break-ins
This was one of the main things that jumped out to me when I first looked at how the respondents answered my survey. When asked if a break-in had ever happened in their current home 9.38% of the 45-54 bracket and 13.27% of the 55+ bracket stated that they had. For the rest of the respondents, aged between 18 and 44, only an average 1.8% said the same had happened to them. Looking at this jump, I believe there a three conclusions that we can draw. Firstly, as the question was directed towards those living in their current property, older people have probably lived in the same place for longer, increasing the likelihood of burglary.
We might also take from this that burglars perhaps deliberately target older people as they are more vulnerable, i.e. less likely to confront if they’re disturbed, etc. If we then compare this data split by geographic location, 16.67% of people in the North West responded that their current property had been broken into. A bit higher than East Anglia, which came in second place with 11.11%.
Over a third of 35-44 year old’s didn’t have the right type of insurance cover
This piece of info was found after asking if the respondents had the appropriate insurance cover when their home had been affected by flood, fire, or structural damage. Across all the age groups, the majority of people did indeed have the right kind of cover, but the 35-44’s represented the largest age group who weren’t able to make a claim. We might assume that this could be related to the stage that people with their mortgage. Being in your mid-thirties, to mid-forties could mean that you are quite low on the property ladder, and saving for a deposit or making those first few years of mortgage payments. An all-inclusive insurance might be low on the list of priorities at what is likely to be a challenging time for any new home owner.
The very young and the very old are more likely to claim for structural damage in their home
The stats threw up this curious anomaly, that gives us an idea of the state of houses that people live in various stages of their lives. When asked if structural damage had ever occurred in their current home 22.22% of 18-24 year-olds and 10.34% of 25-34 year-olds said this had happened. This figure then drops off significantly for the 35-54 to just 3.5%, then back up to 8.16% for the 55+ age group.
We can make a couple of assumptions from this data. Could it perhaps be that young folk are living in older, cheaper accommodation, might be more likely to accidentally damage their property. Maybe as a result of night after night of big swinging parties, etc. And maybe those in the 55+ group have lived in their current home for so long that the place is literally falling apart around them? Some definite food for thought here.
Research of this nature always throws up some interesting points, and can get us talking about the relationships we have with our homes, and how they change over the course of our lives.
What’s your thoughts on home insurance? Leave us a message in the comments, or drop me a line here!
