Will your insurance cover a cow in your swimming pool?

Living in the countryside brings its own unique risks as a selection of the bizarre claims recently settled by large rural insurer NFU Mutual reveals.

A ram took a serious dislike to a policyholder, and head butted him breaking his false teeth. A new set was soon in place following a claim on his NFU Mutual contents insurance

The owner of a house with its own swimming pool took a nap one summer's day unaware that a neighbouring herd of cows was preparing to invade his garden. He woke to find his garden furniture reduced to matchstick and one cow in the pool.

A policyholder left an envelope containing over £250 with other correspondence on a table. His spouse came in and saw brown envelopes on top of a heap, and assumed her husband had left them to use for lighting the fire as usual. The fire went up like a rocket. Only later did the truth dawn as to why. Fortunately, the policyholder was able to claim for

At a children's party and all was going well, not a drink nor a sausage roll dropped. A chocolate fountain was greeted with great enthusiasm until it exploded covering both children and the carpet in warm molten chocolate. Even NFU Mutual's specialist cleaning service couldn't get the stain out - so the carpet was replaced within two weeks of the incident.

A pan fire caused a great deal of damage to the contents and décor of a policyholder's home. One of the items damaged was a stuffed polar bear which NFU Mutual's specialist cleaners restored to its former glory as part of the claim.

"The reason for highlighting these unusual claims is to remind people of the need to regularly review their home insurance to make sure it would fully protect the contents of their homes, garages and gardens," said NFU Mutual Chief Executive Lindsay Sinclair

"Worryingly, research carried out by NFU Mutual shows that only just over half the people surveyed 53% had reviewed their level of home contents cover in the last year. The research also showed that only 74% of people were confident that their contents cover was sufficient to cover the total value of their possessions."

He explained that there were two key areas homeowners to check:

"First is the extent of cover for possessions in your home, garage and garden. This is important for people who live in the country and often have expensive tackle such as the lawn mowers, rotavators and chain saws in addition to the contents of their homes.

"Second is to check just how much cover you have in place. This is the insurance replacement cost, also known as the ‘sum insured'. It's the total amount that would be paid out for all your family's furniture, clothes and personal belongings in the event of a devastating fire."

To help people check they have adequate content insurance cover, NFU Mutual has set up an online home contents calculator on its web site. To use it, click on: nfumutual.co.uk/extras/contentCalc/index.asp.