A significant number of homeowners prefer to save money rather than take out extensive home insurance to protect their valuables.

According to the British Insurance Brokers' Association (BIBA) there are a significant number of Britons who continue to 'self-insure' their possessions.

Graeme Trudgill, technical and corporate affairs executive at BIBA, disagrees with this method stating that there are too many points where this approach could fail..

"It's all very well to try to make your own provision to cover small losses which might befall you, in terms of your carpet, or water down the back of a television set or something," he explained.

"But what you have to bear in mind is that household policies also include liability cover  personal liability for the owner/occupier, for example."

He continued "If you are sued - maybe if one of your children's riding a bike and does a serious injury to someone - then that's the sort of thing that normally would get picked up under your household policy. I'm not sure that there would be many individuals out there that would want to put aside enough money to cover those sorts of circumstances."