I came across your site whilst looking for the Romsey caravan show. We have been caravanning for 5 years and before that camping for 20. I found your website very informative.

May I ask that you consider adding a bit of advice to your site concerning caravan insurance.

Following my experience last year can I ask you to recommend to your readers that they thouroughly check their caravan insurance and that sites they use strictly enforce fire regulations. Your advice on caravan insurance seems to mention only the risks of theft and accident damage.

If, by your adding this advice to your site, it can prevent even one family having to go through this experience it will be worth it.

I am sure many people, like us, are tempted upon staying on a very nice site to take advantage of onsite storage facilities. We did this last August. Having holidayed in Cornwall for the last 9 years for 4 weeks every August we had the opportunity to return 3 1/2 weeks later for another week, the cost of towing the van (extra £25 each way for fuel) against the 3 week storage of £6 per week persuaded us. Due to the amount we had taken with us (including our 12 man Kyham tent which had been used by our daughter and friends on the pitch next to us) we had to leave not only all our caravanning equipment, but also 20 years worth of camping equipment in the caravan, along with clothes shoes and personal pocessions. There were 6 of us and 2 of our dogs in the car.

Exactly 3 weeks after we put the van in storage we received a call to tell us that there had been a fire in the compound. Our van was one of 11 completely destroyed and another 20 badly damaged in the compound, as well as several more damaged in the camping fields around the compound, by flying debris and heat.

Whilst we had taken out insurance for the purchase price of the van and the awning we later found that although we were still paying the same premium as when we bought it for a value of £5500 we would only get the list price of £2000 for the caravan and only 10% of the cost of the awning due to 4 years depreciation. (We were unable to find a similiar caravan of same age and condition for anything less than £3500).

All of the security features we had to have fitted to the van to get the insurance - hitch lock, wheel lock and alarm, which had cost us £500 to fit, were not insured. Although we had added £500 of accessories to the insurance, we would have needed to specify what the accessories were.

Luckily we found that our household contents covered us for a lot of the contents excluding those purchased soley for use in the caravan. Our 6 Lafuma chairs alone cost us over £550, we calculated the contents loss to be around £6000 of which we received £4000 from insurers. The storage compound met all of the requirements of our insurance company includig security light, resident warden within the required distance, locked gate etc, but what they are not required to do and don't do is to inspect vans put into storage to make sure Leisure batteries and gas bottles are turned off and disconnected. It is believed that the fire may have been started by either someone leaving a gas appliance on when they left the caravan to be put into storage or by a faulty battery. The forensic scientist told me that fires are often started when faulty batteries discharge which can be 12 hours plus after last use. The fire started approx 17 hours after two other vans were put into storage and witnesses say that one of these was one of the first two alight.

If this was a fire in a carpark and my vehicle had been destroyed as a result of a fault on an adjacent vehicle I would be able to claim for uninsured losses against the owner of that vehicle as they have to have third party insurance. Many of the caravans in the storage compound fire were older and had no insurance.

Whilst the site have probably been able to claim for their own damage to lighting, fences etc, we have no redress against them for our own loss as owners are responsible for their own insurance. Of all the sites I contacted not one included insurance as part of the storage package not even as an optional extra.

I will probably never put our replacement van into storage no matter how good the site but as a matter of interest phoned several storage facilities, I was surprised that, although it is generally regarded as good practice to do so, very few check that gas bottle and battery are disconnected. One of the 35+ that I called require the gas bottle to be totally removed from the caravan and stored in a secure location away from the caravans.

The reason I mention the fire regulations is because although this site has massive pitches and states on pitching instructions the fire regulations in terms of distance from next unit they are not enforced unless someone complains. Several caravans were sited too close to the fence that ran around the compound. Some of these were seasonal pitches and were not occupied at the time of the fire but many were badly damaged by the heat and as it happened at 5am many occupants had to be woken when the fire was well under way - there was no alarm on site, it was other campers who had been woken by gas bottles exploding that banged on doors of caravans to wake the occupants.

We have come out of this a lot wiser about caravan insurance but with a loss of about £7000. We have managed to buy a replacement caravan but have used all of the insurance for this and have nothing left for tables, chairs, sleeping bags etc and all of the little extras we had bought over the last 5 years. We have not had any compensation for all the time it took, chasing up insurance companies, getting prices for the things we had lost, looking out old receipts and then the time and travel in looking for another caravan. We were very appreciative to many of the companies that we had bought online or mail order form as they were able to supply copy invoices as far back as 3 years.

We also feel that we have lost memories of holidays, probably the owrst moment was when we realised that the journal my 9 year old son had kept since the first use of the caravan, when he was 4, had been destroyed, nothing could replace the first entries of postcards with his early attempt at writing, through improvements to his pages of writings about his holidays.

Yes, a caravan is just a metal box on wheels but I am sure that as you are also keen caravanners you will agree that to a lot of us it becomes part of the family. You mention how sad you were to see your first Monza go. Several people who know about what happened have commented "At least no-one was hurt". I agree but they are only talking about a physical hurt not the emotional hurt.

Ok we have a super slightly newer caravan which is a bit bigger, we have used it once so far but havent yet got used to a new routine and different storage spaces. There are 5 of us, children aged 9 to 17 plus my daughters boyfriend. We also have 3 dogs, Max a collie cross, Ruby a sheltie and Penny our Rottweiler.

We haven't had enough cash left to buy a full awning and our using our scenic porch awning which was at home in the garage at the time of the fire. This does not give us a lot of room in the awning as previously we had a full awning with 2 annexes but we are scouring ebay for a second hand one.

Needless to say, as seasoned campers we will make do with what we have and will continue to enjoys our holidays, we feel we are due some good luck so have fingers crossed for a summer of fantastic weather - even in Cornwall!

We are so sorry to hear of your predicament - it must be heartbreaking to lose your caravan and contents, especially the personal items. We sincerely hope you have many more super holidays in your new caravan in the future.