As bonfire night and hallowe’en approach, it’s a wise move to check your home and contents insurance. Statistics from the insurance industry show that burglaries shoot up by 25% on bonfire night to the highest level of the year – and, guess what, claims for fire damage rocket by 45%!

And if you are going to have a bonfire or light fireworks, even in your own back garden make sure that your home insurance covers you for “personal liability”. A mishandled firework or a few wayward sparks from a bonfire can have expensive repercussions. Defending and settling claims for damage to property or if someone is injured, is beyond most people’s finances unless they have public liability cover within their home insurance policy – so check it out this week!

And perhaps for good measure, you should check your car insurance too! hallowe’en is a really bad time for malicious damage to cars.

Two of the big credit card operators have taken changes in the banking rules as a chance to increase card charges.

M&S Money and First Direct, who incidentally, are both owned by HSBC Bank, have timed their higher charges to coincide with the changes imposed by the new European rules on banking. As from 1st November, First Direct’s fees for cash withdrawals increase from 2.5% to 2.99% - in effect that’s an increase of 20%.

The changes M&S imposed took affect on the 1st of this month. Two changes are involved, the fee for buying in a foreign currency increases from 2.75% to 2.99% and the fee for transferring balances increases from 2% to 2.9%.

These increases may not be ground shaking events but they represent the thin end of the wedge for customers who will inevitable see a steady increase across the board in credit card charges.

According to Property Portfolio Rescue, just over 66% of mortgage holders do not have insurance to cover the monthly cost of their mortgage should they become redundant.

The research also found that only 69% of homeowners have enough cash to see them through 3 months with no income coming in.

As unemployment is expected to surge past 3 million next year, losing your home after a relatively short period of unemployment, becomes a significant risk.

That risk could be really reduced if homeowners took out mortgage payment protection insurance. For example, a monthly mortgage payment of £1,000 could be insured for as little as £12.40 a month. But conditions do apply to these policies. Payments could be delayed for between 30 and 180 days after a claim depending on which policy you selected and some insurers will only pay for up to 12 months. If you’re unemployed for longer you’re on your own.

The Financial Services Authority is expected to announce a new crackdown to head off irresponsible mortgage lending of the kind that was witnessed pre credit crunch.

The central recommendation is expected to be a requirement for all lenders to undertake detailed affordability checks before lending and make the lenders responsible for showing that the borrows can afford to repay the loan. This recommendation sounds the death knell of the self-certified mortgage which previously enabled borrowers to get their mortgage without providing proof of income.

Self-certified loans were popular with the self employed and accounted for over a third of all new mortgages back in 2007. But defaults on them have run at a far higher level than ordinary home loans so the FSA has decided to call “time” on them.

Other changes being considered by the FSA include extending regulation to second charge lending and the buy-to-let market.

According to a recent report published by the Economic and Social Research Council, the recent rises in house prices are going to be reversed. As the government has to cut it’s expenditure, economic recovery will waver and house prices will fall again.

This in turn is expected to create a spiral as potential sellers take their house off the market and buyers find it harder to find what they want and, disillusioned, they too effectively leave the market. Then as household wealth falls, consumer spending falls and this again impacts on house prices.

The Council predicts that it could take three years for UK house prices to sustainably break out of this spiral.

If this is true, it is going to be three four, or even five, years before we see the mortgage lenders pluck up enough courage to accept low deposits as in a falling housing market. When markets fall, the equity homeowners have in their property can be eaten up very quickly leaving them in negative equity - and leaving the mortgage lender facing a potential loss on their lending. For the time being we are unlikely to see any lenders reduce their deposit requirements and this is not good news for first time buyers.

Let’s hope that the Economic and Social Research Council has got it wrong!

First time buyers have been dealt a further blow as Britannia, the mutual mortgage lender, withdraws its low deposit mortgages. It has decided that it will not now lend to anyone who has less than a 10% deposit.

This leaves only a very few mortgage lenders offering to finance homes with small deposits – lenders such as the Yorkshire bank, HSBC and the Cheltenham & Gloucester. And even then the interest rates on offer are sky high.

So life remains tough for cash strapped first time buyers and even where deals are publicised, some borrowers can’t get the funds when they apply. Lenders are remaining very picky as to who they accept and who they don’t.

At the other end of the spectrum, if you are remortgaging with a good credit record and 40 or 50% equity in your home, then there’s a who host of lenders waiting to welcome you with open arms!

A third of fresher students at University are still waiting fort their student loans and grants to help pay their rent and food after the student loans system collapsed in administrative meltdown.

Students are reporting that the Student Loans Company has lost forms and seems unable to answer queries – and even answer the phone! This has meant that the Universities have had to step in and financially assist in the worst cases.

Apparently, a document scanning system at the loans Company failed losing documentation and forcing staff to go back to manual processing. But in practice the debacle looks more complicated than that with as many as 175,000 students waiting for their money.

This is not the first year that the Student Loans Company has got into a mess. They know the likely workload well in advance, so why, oh why, can’t they organise themselves better?

No we’re not talking about your bedroom furniture – it’s your clothes we’re interested in!

Just stop now and ask yourself how much your clothes collection is worth and how much it would cost to replace if, for example, it was destroyed in a house fire.

Ok, what have you decided? £1,000, £3,000 or even £5,000?

You may be surprised to learn that the average ladies wardrobe is worth about £7,000! On average women spend £1,000 a year on clothes and accessories with one in ten spending almost £5,000 a year. That sort of spending soon pushes up the value of your wardrobe!

So now back to that boring subject, insurance. Is your wardrobe fully insured? Most insurers cover clothes under their home insurance policies but not usually on a new for old basis. This means that if your clothes were damaged by a burst water pipe etc, the insurer would make a deduction for wear and tear when working out what your claim is worth. Handbags come under the classification of “house contents” and as such are usually replaced new for old.

If you are one of those clothes high flyers spending £5,000 and more, and have particularly expensive items of clothing, then you will have to specify them on the policy.

Our advice is that if your existing home and contents policy doesn’t really fit the size of your wardrobe collection, then speak to an insurance broker whom can find one of the more specialist insurers who will give you the cover you need.

Do you know the value of your downloads – the games, films, and music you’ve got on your PC or laptop? Estimates put £1,000 on the value of a typical downloaded collection.

And now the key question. Is your download collection insured within your home and contents insurance policy? Many insurers will cover you for up to £2,500 for loss, theft and water damage - but cover can have restrictions.

Normally, the insurer will expect you to have backed up your collection or have a back up on a portable MP3 player. In this situation it would be easy to reload them without having to make a claim unless both your computer and the MP3 went missing or became damaged.

The insurers will rarely offer cover for computer failure and if you want to take your downloaded collection away from home, you’ll need to insure it under the personal possessions provisions of your policy.

Students choosing a student bank account don’t need to worry that they’ll be saddled with the same bank after graduating. After graduating, students can open an account with any of the banks that offer “graduate accounts” and simply transfer their debt from their student account.

What’s more on transfer, some banks offer an interest free period. Take the Halifax for example. They will offer an interest free overdraft for up to £3,000 for the first 12 months – beyond that period, the rate is currently 19.8%. If the prospect of 19.8% puts you off, consider the Co-operative bank. Their graduate account offers a £2,000 interest free overdraft for 12 months followed by interest at 9.9%.

If you want an interest free period of more than 12 months, consider Lloyds TSB and the Royal Bank of Scotland. They offer interest free facilities of £2,000 in the first year followed by £1,500 in year 2 and £1,000 in year 3.

Last month a judgement slipped through the Newcastle County Court which could have major repercussions for the insurance industry.

The case related to a person who had been sold Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) by MBNA. The case was won on a technicality that will send shivers around the boardrooms of the companies that sold PPI.

The judge said that MBNA had created an “unfair relationship” by encouraging the client to take out PPI but failing to disclose the large commission that MBNA would earn as a result from the insurance company. Apparently, such an “unfair relationship” breaks new laws which were introduced in 2007.

As the judgement was delivered in a County Court, the case does not form a binding precedent but companies specialising in miss-selling compensation claims are rubbing their hands with glee. One claims company said, “This has massive ramifications. The unfair relationship issue is widely applicable as it underpins almost every sale of PPI”.

We think it probably applies to all other forms of insurance. Unless the seller informs the client of the commission they will earn, the case would seem to have been miss-sold.

As commentators remain concerned at the margins that are pushing up mortgage interest rates, lenders have also started sneaking in a few hidden charges. Here are four for starters:

1. You have to move your current account to your lender – and unless you pay in a specified minimum amount each month you get charged a monthly service fee a month for the account.

2. You have to buy the lenders home insurance package along with the mortgage. And don’t expect internet premiums – the lenders premium will be VERY expensive.

3. Very high redemption fees – as much as 2% - if you want to move your mortgage within a fixed number of years. This fee is charged if you move for a new deal – or if you move house.

4. Everyone is getting used to high application fees. What we now sometimes see is a lower “reservation fee” or a “booking fee” taking the place of the application fee - but watch out for sky high “completion fees”.

Our advice is if the promoted interest rate looks really keen, the lender will probably increase their income some other way – so be vigilant!

Remember the old adage – if the deal sounds too good to be true, it probably isn’t true!

As dentists threaten mass walkouts over new contracts being imposed on them by the government, insurers rub their hands in glee. The walkout could see thousands more people being denied the services of an NHS dentist.

The British Dental Association is opposed to the new draft contract as it imposes delays in payments and creates more administration and red tape for dentist’s surgeries.

This latest row comes just three years after the last big contract dispute with dentists which saw hundreds of dentists leave the NHS. This latest row may prove to be the last straw for many more, and their clients could be left without NHS dental care.

For those that know and can afford it, the solution is to elect for private dental care funded by insurance. Whilst dentists may grumble about payments from the NHS, they appear to have few complaints about the money they receive from insurance companies!

And dentists happily line up to serve private patients.