People who store more personal posessions in their garden sheds during the summer should be more aware of the benefits of home insurance, a report published by Fair Investment Company indicates.

"Even household items are now being stored outdoors, blurring the distinction between home contents and outbuilding and garden contents,” said Mike Pickard, Head of risk and underwriting for esure Home Insurance. “Homeowners should check the limits of their insurance policies because some are relatively low and in the event of an ‘outdoor' theft not everything may be covered if your shed is bulging with valuables."

The report says that esure Home Insurance has noted that, as manyUK homeowners have converted more traditional storage spaces such as lofts and garages into extentions to their houses, close to 650,000 UK households have had items stolen from garden sheds or garden storage areas in the last year.

The research suggests that 11 per cent of homeowners will spend more than £500 on their gardens and garden accessories in 2008, but these same people won’t take time to ensure the safety of these possessions.

Additional study results published by Fair Investment Company indicated that 93 per cent of homeowners regularly leave items out in the garden overnight, and that even though 14 per cent of homeowners have posssesions in their garden sheds valued up to £1,500, of the 69 per cent of households with a shed, 9 per cent never lock it, which Fair Investment Company shows that this could render their home insurance policy invalid.