In the heavily populated world of status symbols, holiday homes are among the most obvious demonstrations of an individual's wealth and success.

But, as with all such testaments to monetary worth and social positioning, that little place in the country or by the sea rarely comes cheap. In fact, it will generally end up costing much more than the lucky owner might originally expect.

The trouble, for the most part, lies in the additional charges attached to owning and operating two properties. There are the legal fees involved in the purchasing process, for example, or the cost of buying a second set of furniture or pots and pans.

And then there are the ongoing bills. Among these, one charge that will often outdo all the rest is insurance. As with full-time residences, insuring holiday homes on an annual basis can be a fairly expensive and complicated business.

Essentially, there are two ways of getting around the issue: either home-owners can seek to insure a holiday home through an existing home insurance policy, or they can decide to take out a new policy altogether.

In most circumstances, the former option will offer the most convenient solution, if only because it will not carry the hassle of beginning a relationship with a new insurer. This convenience can come at a price however, with the small print in holiday-home cover often providing interesting reading material.

Hibernian, for example, will only insure a holiday home if an existing home policy is held with the company. Even then, however, certain criteria must be met by the holiday residence before it can be defined as such.

The key condition here is that all services (gas, electricity, water) must be switched off when the home is not occupied.

This rule has a simple intention: the avoidance of "natural" catastrophes such as burst pipes or storm-related electrical problems. Pulling on the overalls to switch everything off before you leave your holiday home on Sunday evening might not be too much fun however.

The holiday home must also be checked regularly, although it is difficult to see how well the obedience of such a condition could be policed by the insurer.

Finally, in order to qualify for holiday-home status, the property in question must not be occupied for more than 60 days in a year. Roughly, that translates into one day in every six, or every weekend.

On the upside, Hibernian does not place holiday homes into a higher-risk category or, in other words, does not charge more to insure them than to cover a main residence.

Axa, on the other hand, which offers holiday-home insurance under both existing and independent policies, does apply a higher rate to the cover of a vacation residence than it does a full-time home.

Buildings cover (the cost of rebuilding the house in the event of destruction) for a normal home is charged at €200 per €100,000 rebuilding cost. For a holiday home this rate rises to €375.

Mr Paul Moloney of Axa says that the difference can be attributed to the heightened risks surrounding holiday homes in general.

As well as the aforementioned burst pipes, additional factors such as increased burglary risk must be considered, as well as greater exposure to storms according to coastal locations.

This particular risk, which will obviously vary from place to place, has been enhanced over the past couple of years, according to Mr Moloney.

"Traditionally, insurance companies in Ireland would anticipate one serious weather event every three or four years," he says. "Now it's at least once a year or two per year."

Despite such increased risks, Mr Moloney says the claims experience attached to holiday home is not always bad.

He says the increased costs are more reflective of "catastrophe risk". In other words, an untreated burst pipe in a holiday home could ruin the entire property before being discovered, or a messy break-in could go unnoticed for a number of weeks and could turn into a squatting problem.

Mr Michael Brown, a director with Dublin-based broker Kidd Insurances agrees that holiday homes will not necessarily attract more claims but says insurance companies still do not seem to view this business as being especially attractive.

Partly for this reason, Kidd Insurances offers a special "niche" holiday-home package through Axa, which covers homes of the bricks-and-mortar and caravan variety (see panel).

This policy is a stand-alone product, which does not apply any occupancy restrictions. And while it does require that water be switched off in winter, this rule can be ignored if the home has a central-heating system with a thermostat.

Mr Brown says the contents insurance required for holiday homes will normally be cheaper than for a normal residence, purely because there will be fewer items to cover. Jewellery and bicycles, for example, will not normally be present and, therefore, will not need to be covered. Again, individual experience will vary, with one holiday home's hand-me-down furniture another house's antique cabinets and crystal.

One category of homes where insurance will always be expensive, regardless of contents, is the thatched cottage. Traditionally, such homes carry extremely high weather risks, making them unappealing for insurers.

Until a couple of weeks ago, Kidd Insurances offered insurance for thatched cottages through Lloyds, but this cover has been discontinued by the underwriter because of the inherent risks.

"It's an insurance problem," says Mr Brown, who is frantically researching an alternative underwriter to cover theproperties that look set to remain without insurance in the short term.