Insuring against Christmas calamities

Lloyds TSB Insurance has revealed some of the ‘weird and wonderful’ Christmas calamities that Brits have claimed for in Christmases past. These include:

• falling through the ceiling while getting Christmas decorations from the attic
• Christmas lights falling over and burning the carpet
• sap from the Christmas tree leaking all over the living room carpet
• damaging the oven door when removing the turkey
• falling down the stairs with the Hoover while preparing for Christmas dinner
• sitting on a set of glasses at a party and smashing them
• accidentally driving over a new bike.

The insurer expects to pay out £1m in claims for incidents during the Christmas period.

With all these mishaps, it’s no wonder that 20 per cent of us would rather deal with divorce or burglary than Christmas. Thirty-six per cent of us get stressed out by buying Christmas presents. Eleven per cent of us worry about inviting friends and relatives over for Christmas Day and ten per cent of us dread rushing to the shops at the last minute to buy forgotten items. There are even seven per cent of us who worry about cooking Christmas dinner.

Many people plan to avoid the stress by staying in the office (7 per cent), going abroad for the holidays (10 per cent) and eating out on Christmas day (6 per cent), with one in 20 inviting themselves to friends’ houses for lunch. There are even six per cent who would rather cancel Christmas, such is the stress that it brings.

It seems that Christmas is a hazard to both our homes and our health, as stress levels rise. Meanwhile, there’s the other worry at Christmas – the chance that your home will be burgled and all the Christmas presents will go to an opportunistic thief.