Ever wondered why you shouldn’t announce your holiday on social media…

It could end up being a pretty costly mistake!

I often see people sharing ‘countdown to holiday’ posts – You’re excited and understandably so, but you could have just made one huge mistake.

Not just for the obvious reason, letting people know your house is going to be empty, but you have just invalidated your home insurance.

We all love to share with our friends and family where and when we are going on holiday, tagging ourselves in the airport departure lounge, sharing the ‘only 4 days to go till we get messy in Magaluf’ photos and sharing our holiday snaps.

Holidays are our 1 escape during the year when we can forget about work, the weather back home, any troubles we have and just let our hair down and have a good time.

However, sharing all this information on Facebook, Twitter etc is the perfect way to say ‘my house is empty for the next 7 days’  and home insurers are catching on to this.

If you post photos of your holiday or mention the dates you will be away on social media and you are broken into and burgled, your claim could be thrown out by the insurers.

The same goes for having your location turned on when updating a status. Even if you don’t say where you are or that you are on holiday, updating a status and the location being Magaluf will also invalidate your insurance.

The Financial Ombudsman is concerned that many policyholders do not realise that insurers might check their social media accounts.

It warns that anyone who does not keep their details private is particularly at risk of having their claims denied.

This is because an insurer might consider they have not done enough to guard against the theft by making such information public.

In the U.S., insurers use computer programs to check policyholders’ social media profiles before paying out. An ombudsman spokesman says: ‘It’s possible that your insurance could be void if you’ve explicitly announced your plans on social media.’