You are also covered in a hotel: this is how far Belgian fire insurance extends during your stay abroad | My guide

If you rent a home through a booking platform or vacation home rental company, you can often count on additional insurance being included. But: Even if you rent an apartment or holiday home from a private provider, you don't have to do anything special to secure your holiday accommodation.

If you rent a house or apartment in Belgium as your main residence and take out the legally required rental liability insurance or fire and additional contents insurance, this will also cover damages while renting a holiday home at home or abroad. This means that if you accidentally damage anything in the holiday home or its contents during your stay, the damage will be covered by your home insurance.

Even if you stay in a hotel during your winter stay, you will automatically be insured in the same way. The scheme also applies to those who own their own house or apartment in Belgium and rent a holiday home or apartment abroad in winter or summer. Please note: There are conditions.

• It's just a 'holiday home' if you don't stay there more than 120 days a year. So be careful, because a fair number of winter visitors stay at their destination for more than three months. If you also rent a place in the summer, you will soon have more than 120 days a year. In this case, you should obtain separate fire insurance locally or with your insurance company.

• Furthermore, you may not be the owner of the holiday home, but may only rent it.

If you meet these two conditions, the fire insurance for your main residence (rental home or your own home) also applies to your holiday accommodation. You don't have to do or declare anything special, you are automatically secured. It's important to: Make sure you take out additional home contents insurance, otherwise any items you might damage won't be covered.

Home contents insurance covers the contents of your home and personal belongings at your holiday address in the event of damage, such as fire, broken glass, storms, hail, water and natural disasters such as earthquakes or floods. In the event of damage, insurance will pay the maximum insured amount for renters liability or home contents insurance.

NB! You must always pay the deductible or exemption yourself. Read more about it here.

If you're a second homeowner, it's different. You should then have separate fire insurance for your second home or apartment where you will spend the winter or stay in the summer.

You can get fire insurance for your home abroad from an insurance company in the country where you spend the winter. This is probably the easiest too. Suppose something goes wrong, it will be much easier to reach insurance company contacts and experts during your stay abroad. Moreover, they are also on site faster if needed. What you can do is ask your Belgian insurance company about possible contacts in your country of second residence.

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