Terrible toddlers are bringing down the house

Adults are paying out more than £552 million to pay for the damage caused around the home by reckless children according to new research from Abbey Insurance. More than 2.5 million homes have suffered at the hands of children in the last year alone, with children aged between one and five years of age most likely to cause damage (23%), followed by six to ten year olds (22%).

Boys turned out to be more than twice as likely to cause destruction than girls, with children in Scotland taking the title of ‘most mischievous', causing damage that cost an average of £625 to rectify. Most worryingly more than one in five (21%) of those suffering damage to their property believed that the child had deliberately caused the damage to their home.

Tony Beckwith, Head of Santander Insurance UK commented "Dealing with the damage caused by children can be inconvenient, costly and cause unwanted tension if people do not have the appropriate level of insurance cover.

"With more than a third of all adults (39%) paying for the breakages caused around the home by their children and school holidays now upon us, we would urge anyone looking after children this summer to try and avoid this by ensuring they have the proper cover on their home insurance, including any additional full accidental damage options required on their policies."

The most common damage was to paintwork or wallpaper - 38 per cent of all people who have had the misfortune of suffering damage to their property have needed redecoration. The second most common form of damage was to furniture (31%) with broken ornaments or other items coming in third (30%).