The unluckiest address in Britain

Do you have Britain's unluckiest address?

There are many things we take into account when moving into a new property. But one thing we probably don’t think about is how lucky our new home will be.

However, if new research is to be believed, some houses do have a date with destiny – with even your door number impacting on how lucky your home is.

House number

13 may be unlucky for some – but when it comes to houses, it's 243 that’s the unluckiest door number. In fact, according to new research*, living in house number 243 makes you twice as likely to claim on your contents insurance than if you lived at number 13.

The research looked at the number of home insurance claims made by different house numbers in the UK since January 2007.

Here’s a table showing the top door numbers for insurance claims:

Position	Door number	% of homes which have made a claim since Jan. 2007
1	243	44.76%
2	201	36.60%
3	1	34.26%
4	190	25.80%
5	240	24.00%
182	13	18.37%

As you can see, the widely perceived unlucky number of 13 is way down the list – only 18% of residents living at this number claimed on their home insurance in the last four years.

It also seems that living in a house with a high door number could damage your luck, as seven of the top 10 unlucky door numbers were in the hundreds – 190, 240, 241, 221, 217, 218 and 121.

Street name

Now it may not strictly count as luck, but the actual name of the street you live on can affect how much your home is worth.

A study carried out by property website Zoopla found that the highest valued houses in the UK are found on streets with ‘Hill’ in the name – where the average price is a massive £341,466.

Here’s a table outlining the priciest and cheapest street names:

Position	Name	Avg. Home value
1	Hill	£341,466
2	Lane	£328,378
3	Mews	£294,869
18	Crescent	£176,942
19	Terrace	£156,387
20	Street	£155,515

Source: Zoopla

As you can see, properties on a ‘Street’ are on average the cheapest buys, with ‘Terrace’ and ‘Crescent’ not far behind.

As John Fitzsimons reported in Most expensive street names in the UK, these differences in prices could be put down to a desire to live on streets with more exclusive and rare names.

But then again ‘Lane’ is a fairly common street name and yet also has a very high home value.

Burglary postcodes

As I’ve considered house numbers and street names, I may as well go the whole hog and take a look at the unluckiest postcodes in Britain as well.

Here are the top six burglary hot-spots in the country:

Postcode	Town	County/City	Percentage of theft claims made in the area
M21	Chorlton Cum Hardy, Firswood	Manchester	8.65%
SE3	Blackheath	London	8.17%
W6	Hammersmith	London	8.06%
N4	Finsbury Park	London	7.94%
LS8	Roundhay	West Yorkshire	7.88%
NG6	Bestwood Village, Bulwell, Old Basford	Nottinghamshire	7.82%

Unsurprisingly, the worst postcodes for burglaries are within London; however the postcode with the highest rate of theft is actually on the outskirts of Manchester in the moderately affluent area of Chorlton Cum Hardy.

Looking through the rest of list, it’s obvious that affluent areas within major cities are the most popular targets for criminals.

The unluckiest address...

So if M21 is the postcode with the highest rate of burglary, the lowest value homes are found on ‘Streets’ and 243 is the house number most likely to be subject to an insurance claim – we should be able to deduce unluckiest address in Britain.

After consulting the street index for the M21 area I can confirm that there are no ‘Streets’ in that particular postcode, and of the ‘Terraces’ in the area – no house number 243 exists. So there in no cursed address, which, in hindsight is probably a good thing, as naming one house the unluckiest address in Britain on the back of a handful of surveys is bound to lead to trouble!

But there are still a few things you can do to make your property luckier.

John Fitzsimons looks at three easy ways to cut the cost of your home insurance premiums.

Safe as houses

In my opinion, you make your own luck, and whilst the number of your property and the name of your street probably won’t affect your home insurance rates, where you live almost certainly will.

Home insurance providers will bump up premiums if the crime rate in your area is high – but there are some simple ways to make your home safer and reduce your insurance rates.

It may sound obvious, but ensuring that you have good quality locks on all windows and doors is essential as home insurers will ask you to specify the type of lock on your front door.

There’s no excuse not to have a smoke alarm and if your property is susceptible to flooding you should read Protect your home against flooding, and take action now!

For some more tips on how to reduce the cost of your home insurance read Eight reasons to switch your home insurance today and to get a quote quickly and easily head over to our home insurance comparison centre.

*by Confused.com

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