Warning issued to anyone with a cat flap on their house

Anyone who has a cat flap on their house has been warned that they could be invalidating their home insurance.

A poster on Reddit found out the hard way that his insurer would not cover his house after he contacted them to tell them he’d installed a cat flap for his pet on his front door.

Having realised the issue, he took to Reddit’s CasualUK to warn others not to make the same mistake.

He posted: “Sorry, not very casual or festive but I thought it was important to make sure people are aware. I just saw a post on r/UK_Pets where the OP had their home insurance cancelled after informing them that they'd installed a pet flap.

“I immediately panicked because I've had a cat flap for about ten years and have never even thought of declaring it. I messaged my insurer asking if I was to install a cat flap would I be covered and the answer was no! So now I'm rushing to change insurers before anything happens.

“People with cat flaps - make sure you're covered!”

u/raichu7 said: “Cat flaps make it easy for a burglar to unlock your front door from the inside; sometimes opportunistic thieves will target houses with cat or dog flaps just because of the ease of breaking in. Makes perfect sense why it would affect your home insurance.”

U/thehumblelegume added: “Someone I know was only broken into because the thieves used the cat flap to use a tool and reach up and unlock the door from the inside.

“If it happens a lot I can see why insurers would decline to cover.”

Indeed, this is backed up by insurance experts.

Founder and CEO of Quotezone.co.uk, Greg Wilson, said: “I’m sure some of these unusual mistakes are quite common in households up and down the country, so it’s important homeowners make every effort to maintain and take care for their property and update their insurance providers to any changes in circumstance.

“Providing correct and up to date information to insurers could be the difference between receiving the proper protection for their home should they need to make a claim or rendering the policy invalid, so it’s best to be aware of what does and doesn’t affect home insurance and keep the insurance provider in the loop.

“Although installing pet doors may not seem like something to alert your insurer of, cat and dog flaps give access to your home from the outside. Some insurers may view them as making your home less secure, so it’s essential that you update your insurer should you have one added to your property – failure to do so may invalidate your policy.”