Holiday & Caravan Park Insurance UK 2026: Fire, Flood & Cover
General information — not advice. This guide explains how insurance for holiday and caravan parks generally works. It is not personalised advice or a recommendation, and it does not take account of your own circumstances. Policy wordings differ between insurers, so always check your own documents and speak to a broker before acting. Regulatory status is set out at the end of this guide.
What is holiday park insurance and why is it not commercial property cover?
Holiday park insurance covers a site licence holder's buildings, infrastructure, liability and income — but the risk is unlike ordinary commercial property in three ways. The principal assets are frequently owned by other people (customers' statics on your pitches), the site licence conditions become policy conditions, and the catastrophic exposure is aggregation: fire spreading between units, or flood covering the whole site at once. Insurers rate the layout and the licence compliance as much as the buildings.
Key facts at a glance
- A caravan site requires a licence under section 5 of the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960, and local authorities have considerable discretion over the conditions attached — covering caravan positioning, fire precautions, sanitary facilities and services.
- Failure to comply with a compliance notice is a criminal offence carrying an unlimited fine. Where a site owner breaches licence conditions the council can serve a compliance notice requiring remedial works, and in exceptional cases carry out the works itself.
- Fire separation is the defining physical control. Following fire tests, the 1989 guidance set a minimum spacing of 6 metres between units generally, reduced to 5 metres between caravans of aluminium or similar fire performance, and 3.5 metres at corners. Conditions are based on the Model Standards 2008 for Caravan Sites in England.
- Residential park home sites need a separate licence under the Mobile Homes Act 2013, which introduced a fit and proper person test. From 1 April 2015 a 1960 Act licence ceased to be valid for the residential element, though on mixed sites the old licence continues to apply to the holiday and touring part.
- Caravans are exempt from Building Regulations in England and Wales. Residential park homes should comply with BS 3632:2023, the British Standard covering structural, thermal and fire safety requirements for residential mobile homes.
- Electrical inspection frequencies are set by licence condition and are more demanding than most operators expect — commonly every three years for fixed buildings, annually for licensed and entertainment premises, and annually for hook-up points on touring pitches.
- Where you provide a caravan for rental, the licensee is normally responsible for the whole electrical system including the connection to and wiring within the unit — not just the supply up to it. LPG installations must comply with BS 5482 Part 2, and responsibility again sits with the licensee for units let out.
A holiday park is closer to a small town than to a commercial building. It has its own roads, its own electrical distribution network, its own water and drainage, often its own gas supply, a licensed bar, a pool, play areas, and several hundred structures owned by several hundred different people. The operator is simultaneously a landlord, a utility provider, a licensed premises operator, a leisure operator and a site licence holder. Parks with moorings or a slipway may also need marina and boatyard insurance for the waterside side of the business.
That is why generic commercial property cover fits so badly. It is written for a building with contents. A park's exposure is distributed across hundreds of units and concentrated by two perils that do not respect boundaries: fire, which spreads between closely-spaced units, and flood, which arrives across the whole site at once. Parks are also disproportionately located where flooding happens — beside rivers, on estuaries, behind coastal defences — because those are the places people want to holiday.
This guide is for owners and operators of holiday parks, touring and camping sites, lodge parks and mixed residential sites. It sits in our commercial insights hub and connects to commercial property insurance for the fixed buildings element. Where flood is the dominant concern, our flood zone 3 commercial property guide covers the placement problem in detail. If your park is wholly or mainly residential, read our guide to residential park home site owner insurance.
How does the Insurability Framework apply to a holiday park?
Parks combine three things insurers dislike together: aggregation (hundreds of units in one place), flood exposure (often unavoidable given location), and third-party property in large volumes. Add a poor flood or fire history and the panel narrows sharply. Presenting the risk properly is what The Insurability Framework™ is for.
The Miller & Partner Method
Four pillars applied to every park placement. The objective is to present a compliant, well-laid-out, well-managed site — because in this class the underwriter is buying the site plan and the licence file as much as the schedule of buildings.
Underwriter Intelligence
Appetite splits sharply on flood zone, unit density, whether there is a residential element, and whether the park operates licensed premises and entertainment. Some markets write touring and camping but not statics; some write statics but not park homes. Knowing the divisions before submission avoids a trail of declinatures.
Difficult Risk Expertise
Flood Zone 3 sites, parks with a prior flood or fire claim, mixed residential and holiday sites, parks with outstanding compliance notices, and operators who have inherited a site with sub-standard spacing are all placements the general market declines. These are ordinary submissions here.
Risk Assessment
The uninsured losses on parks are consistent. Business interruption written on a twelve-month indemnity period against a season that only happens once a year. Owners' statics assumed to be someone else's problem. Sums insured for infrastructure — roads, drainage, distribution — omitted entirely. We find these before renewal.
Claims Advocacy
A park claim is rarely one claim. A fire or flood generates a property claim, dozens of separate owner claims, liability questions, and a licensing conversation with the council all at once. We handle the insurer relationship and keep the compliance file in front of them while you deal with owners and the local authority.
Why does your site licence sit inside your insurance policy?
Because specialist wordings require you to hold and comply with all statutory licences, which pulls every licence condition into the insurance contract. Local authorities have considerable discretion under section 5 of the 1960 Act over what conditions to attach — positioning of caravans, fire precautions, electrical and gas safety, sanitary facilities. Breaching them can trigger a compliance notice, and failure to comply with that notice is a criminal offence with an unlimited fine.
The conditions attached to your licence are based on the Model Standards, which central government issues and which local authorities are directed to have regard to. In England, new residential sites carry conditions based on the Model Standards 2008 for Caravan Sites in England, and many parks also carry site-specific requirements attached to their planning consent — commonly the area of land in use and the period during which the site may be occupied.
Three practical consequences that operators routinely underestimate:
- The occupancy period condition is an insurance issue. A planning condition limiting occupation to, say, March to January is a compliance obligation. Allowing year-round residence on a holiday site breaches it, and creates a mismatch between what your policy describes and what the site actually does.
- A change of ownership requires a fresh licence application in the new owner's name. Buyers of parks sometimes assume the licence transfers with the land. It does not, and the council must be told who the new owners are.
- Mixed sites need two licences. From 1 April 2015 residential park home sites required licensing under the Mobile Homes Act 2013, with a fit and proper person test. The old 1960 Act licence remains valid for the holiday and touring element of a mixed site but not for the residential element.
Why are fire separation distances the most important number on your park?
Because they are what stops one unit fire becoming twenty. Following fire testing, guidance sets a minimum spacing of 6 metres between units, reduced to 5 metres between caravans of aluminium or similar fire performance and 3.5 metres at corners. Sub-standard spacing is simultaneously a licence breach, an uninsurable fine exposure, and the single largest driver of catastrophic loss potential on the site.
Caravans burn quickly and completely. A static in a developed fire can produce enough radiated heat to ignite a neighbouring unit within minutes, and once two units are alight the sequence continues down the row. The spacing rule exists precisely to interrupt that chain, and it is the number underwriters check first on the site plan.
What matters at underwriting, beyond the bare distance:
- What sits in the gap. Decking, sheds, gas bottle stores, fencing and vehicles parked between units all compromise the separation even where the units themselves are correctly spaced. Model standards generally require that porches, sheds and similar structures are kept within the required separation distance rather than eating into it.
- Whether the site plan reflects reality. Parks evolve. Units are replaced with larger models, decking is added, pitches are subtly moved. A plan drawn in 2011 may not describe the site today, and a survey will find the difference.
- Firefighting provision. Licence conditions cover fire points, extinguishers and access for appliances, and fire hydrants to BS 750 may be required within a specified distance.
- Fire risk assessment. Where there are paying guests, a fire risk assessment is required under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 with a named responsible person, and it must be kept updated.
- Gas. LPG installations must comply with BS 5482 Part 2, and where you provide units for rental the responsibility for compliance sits with you as licensee rather than with the occupier.
Who insures the owners' static caravans?
Normally the caravan owner, under their own policy — and most pitch agreements require it. But the park's exposure does not disappear: if a fire starts in park infrastructure, or spreads because of inadequate spacing you were responsible for, owners' insurers will pursue a subrogated recovery against you. Your public liability, not your property cover, is what answers that. Units the park itself owns and hires out are your property and need insuring as such.
The ownership picture on a typical park is more complicated than it looks, and getting the categories straight is the foundation of the whole programme:
| Category | Who owns it | Who insures it | Park's residual exposure |
|---|---|---|---|
| Privately owned statics on pitches | The caravan owner | Owner, under their own policy — usually required by the pitch agreement | Liability if the park caused or contributed to the loss; subrogated recovery risk |
| Hire fleet units | The park | The park, as its own property | Full property loss plus loss of hire income; often the largest single asset class |
| Stock units for sale | The park (or on sale-or-return) | The park, as stock — check whether the wording treats them as stock or as buildings | Frequently under-declared; values move with the sales pipeline |
| Touring caravans and motorhomes on pitch | The visitor | The visitor | Liability only, but hook-up electrical safety is squarely the park's responsibility |
| Park homes on residential pitches | The resident | The resident | Liability, plus Mobile Homes Act 2013 obligations as licensee |
| Site infrastructure | The park | The park — and routinely omitted | Roads, drainage, electrical distribution, water, lighting, fencing, reception and amenity buildings |
The category most often missed is the last one. Ask a park operator for their sum insured and they will usually describe the clubhouse, the reception and the shower blocks. The distribution network buried under the site — cabling, pillars, water mains, drainage, roadways — is a substantial asset that is expensive to reinstate after a flood and frequently absent from the schedule entirely. Our underinsurance guide explains what happens when average is applied to a shortfall of that size.
How do insurers treat flood risk on a holiday park?
As the defining rating factor where it exists. Parks are disproportionately sited beside rivers, on estuaries and behind coastal defences, and a flood arrives across the whole site simultaneously — so it is an aggregation event, not a single-property loss. Critically, Flood Re does not apply: it is a domestic scheme, so commercial park operations get no support from it, and neither do the holiday statics on your pitches.
This is the point at which many park placements become genuinely difficult, and being straightforward about it is more useful than optimism.
What underwriters assess:
- Flood zone and modelled depth. Zone alone is crude; modelled depth and frequency at the actual pitch levels matter more. A site in Zone 3 with pitches raised above the modelled level is a different risk from one at grade.
- Defences and their condition, including who maintains them and whether the site relies on third-party assets.
- Claims history, which weighs very heavily. Two flood events in a decade will remove most of the panel.
- Resilience measures — raised electrical distribution and pillars, flood-resilient construction in amenity buildings, pumping capacity, and a tested evacuation plan.
- Ability to move units. A touring park can be cleared in hours. A static park cannot, which is why the two are rated so differently for flood.
Where conventional flood cover is unavailable or prohibitively sub-limited, alternatives exist. Parametric flood insurance pays on a measured trigger — a river gauge reaching a defined level — rather than on assessed damage, which suits a park where the loss is predictable and the adjustment would otherwise be slow. Our guides on flood business interruption and insurance after a flood claim cover the position where a claim has already happened.
What happens when storm damage hits a park of statics?
Wind uplift is the mechanism, and anchoring is the control. Statics are light relative to their surface area, and an unanchored or poorly anchored unit can be lifted, shifted or overturned in a severe gale — then strike neighbouring units. Storm claims on parks are therefore rarely isolated: one unit becomes debris and damages several more, which is why insurers examine tie-down arrangements and exposure to prevailing winds.
Coastal and elevated sites carry this most acutely, and the same geography that makes a park attractive tends to make it exposed. What matters:
- Anchoring and tie-down systems appropriate to the unit type and the site's wind exposure, with a maintenance and inspection regime rather than a one-off installation.
- Debris control — trampolines, garden furniture, storage boxes and unsecured decking become missiles in a gale, and a park-wide policy on securing items ahead of forecast weather is both good practice and a claims defence.
- Tree management around pitches, since mature trees on a park in high wind are a recurring severe loss. Where the park has significant tree cover this is a standing maintenance obligation.
- Storm damage to infrastructure — lighting columns, fencing, roofs on amenity buildings — which is your property loss even where the units belong to owners.
- The named storm question. Some wordings apply different terms or excesses to named storm events. Worth checking rather than discovering.
Holiday park insurance cover checker
Select the site type that best matches yours to see the cover architecture we would normally build. For multi-park groups our commercial team can structure the whole estate on one submission.
Site compliance self-check
Tick every item you could evidence today. This is the list we work through before taking a park to market — and much of it is what a licensing officer would ask for on inspection.
- Current site licence held in the correct name, with a fresh application made if ownership has changed
- Mobile Homes Act 2013 licence also held where any part of the site is residential
- No outstanding compliance notices, and evidence retained of how previous ones were closed out
- Site plan current and accurate, with separation distances marked and verified on the ground
- Nothing encroaching into separation gaps — decking, sheds, gas stores, fencing, parked vehicles
- Fire risk assessment current with a named responsible person, plus fire points and appliance access maintained
- Electrical inspections on the licence frequency — including annual testing for licensed premises and touring hook-ups
- Gas safety certificates for all appliances and flues you provide, retained and available for inspection
- Pitch agreements require owners to hold their own insurance, with evidence collected annually
- Site infrastructure included in the sums insured — roads, drainage, distribution, lighting, fencing
- Business interruption indemnity period covers a full season plus recovery, not twelve months by default
- Anchoring and storm preparation regime documented, with tree management where relevant
Holiday park placement risk assessor
An indicative view of how your site will be received in the market, and what we would prioritise in the submission. This is general information only — not personalised advice, not a recommendation and not a quotation.
Where does public liability bite hardest on a park?
Water and children, in that order. Swimming pools are the highest-severity liability feature on any park — drowning and near-drowning claims are catastrophic and turn entirely on supervision arrangements and documented safety procedure. After pools come play areas, open water on site, entertainment and licensed premises, and site roads where pedestrians, children and vehicles share space without pavements.
The liability profile of a park is unusual because your guests are at leisure, often with children, frequently in unfamiliar surroundings, sometimes after a drink, and present for days rather than minutes. Exposure duration alone makes it different from most commercial premises.
The features underwriters examine, in rough order of severity:
- Swimming pools and splash areas. Whether supervised or unsupervised is the first question, and unsupervised pools require a far more rigorous documented safety regime — depth marking, signage, rescue equipment, water quality testing, and a written normal operating procedure and emergency action plan. Pool plant rooms carry their own chemical hazards.
- Hot tubs. A legionella exposure requiring documented dosing, testing and cleaning per unit, not just an amenity. Outbreaks on parks have been serious and are heavily scrutinised.
- Play areas and inflatables. Equipment inspection regimes, impact-absorbing surfacing and age-appropriate zoning. Where the park hosts external activity providers, their liability cover needs verifying annually.
- Open water — fishing lakes, ponds, boating and coastal access. Fencing, signage and supervision, with particular care where the boundary between park and open water is informal.
- Licensed premises and entertainment. Assault claims, glass injuries, dance floor slips, and the licensing obligations that sit alongside. Note that licence conditions typically require annual electrical inspection of licensed premises rather than the three-year cycle applying to other fixed buildings.
- Site roads and traffic. Children on bikes, guests towing, delivery vehicles and mobility scooters sharing unlit lanes without pavements. Speed control and segregation matter more than operators expect.
- Trees and grounds. Falling limbs onto pitches, uneven ground, unlit steps and slopes.
Where the activity profile is unusually broad, our high risk public liability guide covers how liability is placed for operations that mainstream markets treat cautiously, and the trampoline park guide deals with the equipment-inspection discipline that applies equally to on-park play equipment.
Why does business interruption need a whole-season indemnity period?
Because a park earns its year in a season, and the season only comes round once. A fire or flood in April can remove the entire trading year even if reinstatement completes by September — the income is gone regardless. A twelve-month indemnity period is therefore structurally wrong for a seasonal business: it may expire before you have traded a single full season, and it takes no account of the time needed to win owners and bookings back.
This is the most consistently under-scoped element on park policies, and the arithmetic is straightforward once stated.
Consider a static park with a March-to-January licence. A serious flood in early March damages infrastructure and amenity buildings. Reinstatement takes eight months and completes in November — physically finished, but arriving after the season has ended. The park has lost that year's pitch fees, hire income, bar and shop revenue in full. It then opens in March of the following year into a market where owners have moved units elsewhere and repeat bookings have gone to competitors. The revenue does not return to normal until the season after that.
On a twelve-month indemnity period, cover expired in the March that the park reopened — before a single full season of recovery had been trading. The correct structure is:
- Twenty-four months as a minimum for any seasonal park, and thirty-six where the site is complex, flood-prone or has a significant residential element with longer reinstatement.
- Gross revenue calculated across every income stream — pitch fees, hire fleet income, sales commissions, bar, shop, entertainment, and site services — rather than pitch fees alone.
- Owner attrition modelled. Static owners whose units are damaged or whose park is closed may re-site elsewhere. That loss persists well beyond reinstatement and is the element most often omitted.
- Denial of access and utility failure extensions at meaningful limits — a park can be undamaged and unusable if the access road floods or the water supply fails.
Our business interruption guide covers the calculation methodology generally, flood business interruption deals with the flood-specific position, and contingent business interruption is relevant where the park depends on a single access route or supplier.
What drives the cost of holiday park insurance in 2026?
Flood exposure and unit density above everything else, followed by whether separation distances are actually compliant on the ground, the licence and compliance history, the activity profile, and whether there is a residential element. Park premiums vary enormously between two sites of identical turnover, and the variance is almost entirely explained by site plan and licence file rather than by accounts.
| Rating factor | Why it moves the premium | Mitigation |
|---|---|---|
| Flood zone and history | The largest single factor where it applies. A whole-site aggregation event with no Flood Re support. | Modelled depth at pitch level, resilience measures, evacuation plan, full disclosure of prior events. |
| Separation distances | Determines whether one unit fire stays one unit fire. Verified on the ground, not from the plan. | Survey the site against the 6m / 5m / 3.5m standards and clear anything encroaching into gaps. |
| Unit density and total count | Aggregation. More units in less space raises both frequency and maximum foreseeable loss. | Accurate unit schedule by type, with the site plan reflecting current reality. |
| Licence and compliance history | Outstanding compliance notices narrow appetite sharply; a clean inspection record does the opposite. | Close notices promptly, retain evidence, and supply the inspection correspondence unprompted. |
| Static vs touring mix | Touring units can be moved ahead of a flood; statics cannot. The two rate very differently. | Declare the mix accurately and separately rather than as a single unit count. |
| Hire fleet size and value | Fleet units are your property, frequently the largest asset class, and generate hire income exposure too. | Schedule at replacement cost including siting and connection; review annually as the fleet turns over. |
| Pool, hot tubs and activities | Pools are the highest-severity liability feature; hot tubs bring legionella exposure. | Documented safety and water management regimes; verify external activity providers' cover annually. |
| Licensed premises and entertainment | Raises liability frequency and brings annual electrical inspection obligations. | Maintain the annual inspection cycle and door supervision arrangements where relevant. |
| Residential element | Year-round occupation changes the risk profile and requires a Mobile Homes Act 2013 licence. | Declare it explicitly; confirm the fit and proper person registration is current. |
| Coastal or elevated exposure | Wind uplift on statics, with one displaced unit damaging several more. | Anchoring regime with inspection records, plus a documented storm preparation procedure. |
| Sums insured adequacy | Infrastructure is routinely omitted, producing average on the exact loss most likely to occur. | Value roads, drainage, distribution, lighting and fencing — see our underinsurance guide. |
| Claims history | Repeat flood or fire losses narrow an already limited panel considerably. | Evidence remediation and resilience investment — see our claims history guide. |
Meaningful premium ranges are hard to give without knowing unit count, flood position and total insured values, and any generic figure would mislead. What is consistent is the shape: a compliant touring site away from flood risk sits within ordinary leisure appetite at modest cost, a static park with clubhouse and pool runs into the tens of thousands annually across property, liability and business interruption, and a large static park in Flood Zone 3 with a claims history may find terms genuinely scarce until resilience work is evidenced. The spread between a well-presented and a poorly-presented submission is unusually wide in this class, because so much of the risk is visible on a site plan.
What are a park operator's core legal duties?
Five regimes apply together: site licensing under the 1960 Act and, for residential sites, the Mobile Homes Act 2013 with its fit and proper person test; fire safety under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005; gas and electrical safety at the frequencies your licence specifies; health and safety including pool and water management; and planning, where occupancy period conditions are commonly attached.
Site licensing
Hold a licence under section 5 of the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960 and comply with every condition attached. Conditions typically address caravan positioning and separation, fire precautions, electrical, gas, water and oil supplies, sanitary facilities, drainage and refuse. Where a site owner breaches conditions the local authority can serve a compliance notice requiring works, and failure to comply is a criminal offence carrying an unlimited fine.
Residential sites
Residential park home sites require licensing under the Mobile Homes Act 2013, with the site owner or manager required to be a fit and proper person. Planning permission for residential use must be in place first. On mixed sites the 1960 Act licence continues to apply to the holiday and touring element.
Fire safety
Where there are paying guests, a fire risk assessment is required with a named responsible person, kept updated. Separation distances, fire points, appliance access and — where required by licence condition — fire hydrants form part of the physical provision.
Gas and electrical safety
Gas safety check certificates for flues and appliances provided by the site operator must be kept available for inspection. Electrical inspection frequencies are set by licence condition, commonly three-yearly for fixed buildings, annually for licensed and entertainment premises, and annually for touring hook-up points. Where you provide a caravan for rental, responsibility normally extends to the whole electrical system including wiring within the unit.
Water and pool safety
Swimming pools require a written normal operating procedure and emergency action plan, water quality management, and appropriate supervision arrangements. Hot tubs and any hot or cold water systems bring legionella duties under COSHH, requiring a written control scheme with documented testing.
Employment
Employers' liability insurance is compulsory from the moment anyone works for you, including seasonal and casual staff — a category parks use heavily and sometimes overlook when arranging cover.
Real holiday park claims and what they cost
The three composites below reflect the loss patterns this sector produces: one fire spreading between under-spaced units, one spring flood that removed an entire season, and one pool liability claim decided by supervision records. These are illustrative composites written for this guide — not real clients and not actual claims — and the figures are indicative examples rather than settlements we have handled.
Case study 1 — Fire spreading across four statics
The situation: A fire started in a privately owned static on a coastal park, most likely from an electrical fault in the owner's own appliance. Two units either side had been replaced over the previous four years with wider models, and a run of composite decking had been built between two of them. The measured gap at the closest point was 3.9 metres against a required 6. The fire spread to three neighbouring units, all destroyed, plus damage to a fourth and to site electrical pillars.
Claim type: Public liability (subrogated recoveries from owners' insurers), property damage to infrastructure, and a licensing investigation.
Settlement: Three units destroyed at £34,000–£52,000 each, one damaged at £19,000, total owner losses £148,000, pursued against the park by owners' insurers on the basis that inadequate separation caused the spread. Liability accepted with a contribution argument on the decking, which the owner had installed with the park's permission. Settled at £109,000 plus £27,000 defence costs. Park infrastructure damage £31,000. The council served a compliance notice requiring the layout to be brought into conformity, which the park closed out at a cost of £46,000 in re-siting works over the following close season.
Lessons: The park did not start the fire and would have had no liability at all had the spacing been compliant. The exposure was created entirely by drift — larger replacement units and permitted decking eroding a gap nobody re-measured. A site survey against the standards, and a written policy on decking within separation distances, would have prevented the whole sequence.
Renewal impact: Premium increased approximately 70%, with a condition requiring an annual measured site plan and evidence that separation distances are maintained.
Case study 2 — Spring flood and the lost season
The situation: A riverside static park in Flood Zone 3 flooded in mid-March, three weeks before the season opened. Water reached 700mm across the lower two-thirds of the site. Amenity buildings, the shop, reception and the electrical distribution network were all affected. Fifty-two privately owned statics sustained water ingress. Reinstatement of infrastructure and buildings took seven months, completing in October — after the season had ended.
Claim type: Property damage and business interruption.
Settlement: Buildings and infrastructure reinstatement £486,000, of which £190,000 was electrical distribution, drainage and roadway — items only partially reflected in the sum insured, so average was applied at 82%, reducing settlement to £398,520. Business interruption claimed at £610,000 for the lost season and impaired following year; the policy carried a twelve-month indemnity period which expired the following March, capping settlement at £395,000. Total settled £793,520 against losses of approximately £1,096,000, leaving roughly £302,000 uninsured. Nineteen owners re-sited to other parks and did not return.
Lessons: Two independent failures compounded. The sum insured omitted most of the buried infrastructure, which is precisely what a flood damages. And the indemnity period was set at a default twelve months for a business that earns its year in a season — so it expired before a single full season of recovery had traded. Either failure alone would have been survivable.
Renewal impact: One market declined. Re-placed with a specialist leisure market at approximately 2.3× the previous premium, with a 24-month indemnity period, a revalued schedule including infrastructure, and a flood resilience programme agreed as a condition.
Case study 3 — Near-drowning in an unsupervised pool
The situation: A seven-year-old was recovered unconscious from the shallow-to-deep transition of an unsupervised indoor pool on a static park. He was resuscitated by another guest and by staff, and survived with a hypoxic brain injury requiring lifelong care. The pool operated on an unsupervised basis with signage requiring adult supervision of children. The park's normal operating procedure and emergency action plan existed but had last been reviewed four years earlier, poolside rescue equipment was present but the throw line was found to be damaged, and no member of staff on duty that afternoon held a current pool rescue qualification.
Claim type: Public liability — catastrophic injury.
Settlement: Liability was contested on the basis that the parent was responsible for supervision, but the failures in the park's own safety regime undermined the defence substantially. Damages including care costs, accommodation adaptation, loss of earnings and general damages settled at £3.1m, with claimant costs of £340,000 and defence costs of £185,000. Total claim £3,625,000, against a £5m public liability limit. The HSE investigation resulted in a fine and costs of £120,000 — uninsured.
Lessons: This is the loss that determines whether a park's liability limit is adequate, and £5m was uncomfortably close. Every element of the failed defence was inexpensive to have had: a current normal operating procedure, functioning rescue equipment checked to a schedule, and a qualified member of staff on duty. Parks running unsupervised pools carry a higher evidential burden, not a lower one.
Renewal impact: Public liability limit increased to £10m. Premium increased approximately 145%, with conditions requiring documented daily pool checks, annual review of the operating procedure, and a qualified responder on site during pool opening hours.
How should you manage a holiday park insurance claim?
Run four tracks from the first hour: guest and resident safety, the insurance claim, communication with unit owners, and the local authority. What most affects the outcome is photographing the site before anything is cleared or re-sited, because layout evidence determines liability in fire claims, and notifying owners' insurers early, since subrogated recoveries against the park are the normal pattern rather than the exception.
- Account for everyone and make the site safe. Parks hold hundreds of people who do not know the site well, including children and, on residential sections, potentially vulnerable occupiers. Establish who is on site, evacuate to a defined assembly point, and isolate electrical and gas supplies to affected areas.
- Notify your broker the same day. Not a general claims line — the broker holding your site plan, licence file and schedule of units. Park claims involve many parties and the adjuster appointment made on day one shapes everything.
- Photograph the whole site before anything moves. Fire spread, unit positions, separation distances, what was in the gaps, the condition of infrastructure and the water level marks after a flood. Once damaged units are removed and pitches cleared, the layout evidence that determines liability is gone permanently.
- Notify the local authority where the licence is engaged. Fire, flood or any incident affecting compliance with licence conditions will involve the council. Early, voluntary contact is treated very differently from a late discovery, and it runs in parallel with the insurance claim.
- Communicate with unit owners promptly and factually. Confirm what has happened, tell them to contact their own insurers, and avoid speculating on cause or accepting responsibility. Statements made in the first days are read back later by owners' insurers pursuing recovery.
- Expect subrogated recoveries and prepare for them. Owners' insurers will look at whether the park caused or contributed to the loss — most often through separation distances, electrical distribution or tree management. Assemble the compliance evidence for those three specifically.
- Quantify the season, not just the damage. Model the income loss across pitch fees, hire, bar, shop and commissions, and include the owners likely to re-site elsewhere. Raise any gap between that figure and the indemnity period immediately rather than at settlement.
- Plan reinstatement around the season. Physical completion in November is worth far less than completion in March. Agree the programme with the adjuster on that basis and press for interim payments to keep the works on the critical path.
Glossary of holiday park insurance terms
- Aggregation
- The concentration of many exposures in one place, so that a single event damages numerous units at once. The defining characteristic of park risk.
- BS 3632:2023
- The British Standard for residential mobile homes, covering structural, thermal and fire safety requirements. Residential park homes should comply with it.
- Compliance notice
- A notice served by a local authority requiring remedial works where site licence conditions are breached. Failure to comply is a criminal offence with an unlimited fine.
- Denial of access
- Business interruption extension responding where the park is undamaged but unreachable or unusable — a flooded access road or failed water supply.
- Fit and proper person
- The test introduced by the Mobile Homes Act 2013 that a residential site owner or manager must satisfy to hold a licence.
- Flood Re
- The domestic flood reinsurance scheme. It does not apply to commercial park operations or to holiday statics, so park flood cover is placed entirely on its commercial merits.
- Hire fleet
- Units owned by the park and let to guests. The park's own property, frequently its largest asset class, generating both property and loss-of-hire exposure.
- Indemnity period
- The maximum period over which business interruption is payable. On a seasonal park it must span a full trading season plus recovery, not a default twelve months.
- Model Standards
- Government-issued standards that local authorities have regard to when setting licence conditions. New residential sites in England carry conditions based on the Model Standards 2008.
- Normal operating procedure (NOP)
- The written document setting out how a swimming pool is operated safely day to day, paired with an emergency action plan. Central to defending a pool liability claim.
- Occupancy period condition
- A planning condition limiting the part of the year during which a holiday site may be occupied. Breaching it creates both a compliance and a disclosure problem.
- Pitch agreement
- The contract between park and unit owner governing siting. Normally requires the owner to hold their own insurance on the unit.
- Separation distance
- The minimum spacing between units to prevent fire spread — generally 6 metres, reduced to 5 metres for aluminium or similar fire performance and 3.5 metres at corners.
- Site infrastructure
- Roads, drainage, electrical distribution, water mains, lighting and fencing. The park's own property, expensive to reinstate after flood, and routinely omitted from sums insured.
- Site licence
- The licence required under section 5 of the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960. Conditions become insurance conditions through the compliance requirement in most wordings.
- Subrogated recovery
- A claim by a unit owner's insurer against the park after paying their own insured, alleging the park caused or contributed to the loss.
- Wind uplift
- The lifting force on a static in high wind. Controlled by anchoring and tie-down systems, and the mechanism behind most severe park storm losses.
Frequently asked questions about holiday park insurance
Rarely adequately. Three things typically fail. The site infrastructure — roads, drainage, electrical distribution, lighting — is omitted from the sums insured, and that is exactly what a flood damages. The business interruption indemnity period is set at a default twelve months for a business that earns its year in a season. And the wording does not contemplate hundreds of third-party owned units on your land, or the licence conditions that govern how they are arranged. Parks need a leisure or park-specific product rather than a general commercial one.
Normally the owners, under their own policies, and most pitch agreements require it. But your exposure does not disappear. If a fire spreads because separation distances were inadequate, or starts in park electrical distribution, owners' insurers will pursue a subrogated recovery against you — and that lands on your public liability, not your property cover. Units the park itself owns and hires out are a different matter entirely: those are your property and need insuring as such, along with the hire income they generate.
Following fire testing, the guidance sets a minimum spacing of 6 metres between units generally, reduced to 5 metres between caravans made of aluminium or other material with similar fire performance, and 3.5 metres at corners. Licence conditions are based on the Model Standards, and the local authority sets what applies to your site. Critically, what sits in the gap matters as much as the distance — decking, sheds, gas bottle stores, fencing and parked vehicles all compromise separation even where the units themselves are correctly spaced.
Yes, on a mixed site. From 1 April 2015 residential park home sites required licensing under the Mobile Homes Act 2013, which introduced a fit and proper person test for the site owner or manager, and a 1960 Act licence ceased to be valid for the residential element. On mixed sites the old licence continues to apply to the holiday and touring part. Planning permission for residential use must be in place first. Operating the residential element without the correct licence is a serious compliance failure.
Often, but it is a specialist placement and Flood Re gives you no help — it is a domestic scheme, so neither the commercial operation nor the holiday statics benefit. What determines the outcome is evidence: modelled flood depth at actual pitch levels rather than the zone designation, the condition and ownership of any defences, resilience measures such as raised electrical distribution and flood-resilient amenity construction, a tested evacuation plan, and full disclosure of prior events. Where conventional cover is unavailable or heavily sub-limited, parametric flood cover paying on a measured river-gauge trigger is worth considering.
Twenty-four months minimum, and thirty-six for complex, flood-prone or partly residential sites. A twelve-month period is structurally wrong for a seasonal business: a flood in March can remove the entire trading year even if reinstatement finishes in October, and the policy may then expire the following March before a single full season of recovery has traded. The calculation should cover every income stream — pitch fees, hire fleet, sales commissions, bar, shop and site services — and should model the owners who re-site elsewhere and do not come back.
Only if you have declared it, and most operators have not. Ask a park owner for their sum insured and they will describe the clubhouse, reception and shower blocks. The roads, drainage, electrical distribution and pillars, water mains, lighting and fencing are a substantial asset, expensive to reinstate, and precisely what a flood destroys. Omitting them means average is applied to the very loss most likely to occur. Valuing it properly is an afternoon's work with a quantity surveyor and one of the highest-value things a park operator can do.
£5m is the practical minimum and £10m is appropriate for any park with a swimming pool, open water or significant play provision. The reason is severity rather than frequency: a catastrophic injury claim involving a child — a near-drowning with hypoxic brain injury, for instance — can produce damages and costs in the millions once lifelong care is included. A £5m limit is uncomfortably close to that. Parks running unsupervised pools carry a higher evidential burden, so the safety documentation matters as much as the limit.
It is set by your licence conditions and is more demanding than most operators expect. Typical frequencies are every three years for fixed buildings, annually for licensed and entertainment premises, and annually for electrical hook-up points on touring pitches. Where you provide a caravan for rental, responsibility normally extends to the whole electrical system including the connection to and wiring within the unit — not just the supply up to it. The same principle applies to LPG installations, which must comply with BS 5482 Part 2.
Two things need attention immediately. The site licence does not transfer with the land — a change of ownership requires a fresh application in the new owner's name, and the council must be told who the new owners are. And you inherit the site as it actually is, which is frequently not as the plan describes: units replaced with wider models, decking added, gaps eroded. Commission a measured survey against the separation standards during due diligence rather than after completion, because remedying sub-standard spacing means re-siting units, and that can only realistically happen in the close season.
They are a legionella exposure rather than simply an amenity, and insurers treat them accordingly. Each tub needs a documented water management regime covering dosing, testing, cleaning and record-keeping, with duties arising under COSHH. An outbreak on a park is a severe liability event and a serious reputational one, and the defence rests entirely on the records. Beyond legionella, premium lodges with hot tubs raise sums insured and escape-of-water exposure, since the internal specification makes water damage considerably more expensive to put right.
Look for a broker who asks for your site plan and licence inspection history before discussing premium, who understands that the indemnity period is a seasonal question rather than a default, and who has direct access to Lloyd's syndicates and specialist leisure markets rather than a general commercial panel. Miller & Partner approaches every placement through the Insurability Framework — underwriter intelligence, difficult-risk expertise, risk assessment and claims advocacy — which is what allows Flood Zone 3 sites, parks with claims history and mixed residential sites to be placed on their facts. Start with our commercial insights hub or the Insurability Framework page.
Important information
Regulatory status. Miller & Partner Limited is an Appointed Representative of Gauntlet Risk Management Ltd, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Miller & Partner Limited is registered in England and Wales and trades from Vivian House, Roman Bridge Close, Mumbles, Swansea SA3 5BG.
This is general information, not advice. This guide is published for general information about how insurance for holiday and caravan parks works. It is not personalised advice, a personal recommendation, or an offer of cover, and it does not take account of the circumstances of any particular business. No liability is accepted for any action taken, or not taken, on the basis of this guide alone.
Cover, wordings and figures. Cover is subject to insurer acceptance, underwriting criteria, and the full terms, conditions, limits and exclusions of the policy issued. Wordings differ substantially between insurers, so always read your own policy documents. Any premium ranges, limits or claim figures shown are illustrative examples only and are not quotations or indications of price.
Case studies. The case studies in this guide are illustrative composites written for the purpose of explanation. They do not describe real clients or actual claims.
Regulation and legislation. References to legislation, regulators and official guidance reflect our understanding as at the date of publication and may change. Always work from the current published source rather than this guide.
Miller & Partner Limited, Vivian House, Roman Bridge Close, Mumbles, Swansea SA3 5BG. Telephone 01792 001350. FS Register FRN 1029698 — you can check this on the Financial Services Register at register.fca.org.uk.
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