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Ensure home/buildings cover protects you if staging a display
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ROSPA estimate 500 people per year injured at home/private parties
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Rural community urged to ensure livestock and domestic animals kept safe
From Catherine wheels to rockets, Roman candles to firecrackers, revellers planning DIY celebrations for Bonfire Night this year are being urged to ensure that the cost of the fireworks is the only expensive bill they are left facing after the smoke clears.
The warning comes from the UK's leading rural insurer NFU Mutual, with figures from ROSPA revealing around half the 1,000 people injured by fireworks each year are hurt while attending small-scale family or private displays, rather than larger organised events.
For individual householders, who potentially could be held financially liable for any injuries sustained by fireworks set off on their property the importance of having the correct home insurance in place is therefore crucial.
Matthew Scott, Chief Claims Manager at NFU Mutual, explained: "While incidents of damage or injury caused by fireworks are relatively rare, when they do occur they can prove very costly if you don't have the proper home and buildings insurance in place to protect yourself.
"Perhaps most important is to ensure you have third party liability insurance, as this should cover you if you damage someone else's property or someone sustains an injury which can be judged to have resulted through your own negligence."
To help ensure private displays go off without incident, the insurer has highlighted a number of key safety tips for those staging their own displays:
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Keep fireworks in a closed box and use them one at a time
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Read the instructions on each firework carefully, use a torch if you need to
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Avoid pointing fireworks at people or adjoining buildings
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Keep flames, including cigarettes, away from fireworks except when ready to set them off
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Never go back to a firework once it has been lit, even if it doesn't go off
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Make sure that fires are out and surroundings are made safe before leaving at the end of any display
Within rural communities extra care should also be taken to ensure domestic animals are kept safely indoors during hours of darkness around the 5th November, and bonfire and firework displays are not staged in areas bordering land or property which is home to livestock.
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