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Women are Britain’s big spenders, splashing out on average over £2,350 on the most expensive item in the home. The top three most expensive belongings in the homes are TVs, laptops and jewellery.

While women spend most on large items for the home, if a disaster happened, three in five women would first save items with sentimental value such as family photos, wedding albums, the family pet and engagement rings.

Brits heading abroad for an extended trip away this year could risk leaving their homes uninsured if left unoccupied for more than 30 days warns moneysupermarket.com.

By analysing policies from top home insurance providers the research reveals home insurance policies could become invalid if left unoccupied for only 30 days, worrying news for the half million Brits who live abroad for part of the year and almost 300,000 people that head off on a career break or gap year in retirement each year.

Modern life is such that things change more quickly than they used to. We no longer stay in the same jobs for thirty years, preferring to move to several different roles either for pay reasons or to broaden our experience.

Likewise, these days we are unlikely to stick with the same utility suppliers, broadband providers or cable television companies for years on end.

People in London are the most likely in the UK to make a claim for theft on their home insurance policy, despite a Manchester postcode taking the top spot for the area where the highest proportion of theft claims are made, research from moneysupermarket.com found.

The comparison site analysed over 1.1 million home insurance enquiries made on the site in 2009 and found London held ten of the top 20 postcode districts most likely to have made a claim for theft, an increase of 100 per cent on the previous year.