University areas don’t generally have the best of reputations in the UK. Yes, they are often beautiful cities with highly educated people – but they’re also regularly criminal hotspots. If your client has a son or daughter heading to university digs this month then you might want to emphasise the need for them to check their home insurance policies for suitable cover – especially if they will live in one of these cities.
That’s because a new analysis from moneysupermarket.com has listed the UK’s top student burglary hotspots – and it’s Twickenham, home of St Mary’s University, that leads the way.
The comparison website analysed two million home insurance quotes run on the website over the last two years, to identify the ‘student towns’ with the highest and lowest rate of theft of contents from the home. Those rates were averaged out across the student areas in each town, revealing those living in Twickenham are most likely to make a claim for burglary, with a rate of 33.6 claims per 1,000 quotes.
However, you might be just as concerned if your son or daughter is heading to a university town in West Yorkshire – as its universities dominate the top 10.
Students living in Leeds attending one of the six registered higher education institutions in the city are second most likely to experience theft from the home, with a rate of 30.3 claims per 1,000 quotes. Bradford students (University of Bradford) face the third highest risk, with a rate of 27.2, closely followed by their West Yorkshire neighbours in Huddersfield, fourth on the list with 26.6 claims per 1,000 quotes.
Meanwhile, you’ll probably feel much safer if the student you know is going to university in Wales. Welsh postcodes dominate the student towns with the lowest rate of claims, with Carmarthen (Trinity St David), Newport (Harper Adams University) and Aberystwyth (University of Aberystwyth) all featuring in the bottom five. Northern Ireland’s Coleraine (University of Ulster) is also among the student towns with the lowest rate of claims, as is Chichester (University of Chichester).
When it comes to the famous Oxbridge rivalry, the University of Cambridge gets first class honours. Oxford ranks tenth overall, with a rate of 22.9 claims for burglary per 1,000 quotes, while Cambridge boasts a much lower rate of just 10.72 claims per 1,000 quotes.
Let’s take a look at the top and bottom 10 in full.
Top 10 student burglary hotspots, by town:
Bottom 10 burglary hotspots, by town
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