More than 10,000 fire damage claims invalidated due to lack of smoke alarm

Home insurance policyholders could have invalidated 10,124 fire damage claims and missed out on receiving £16.7m in claims payouts in the year to March 2024 due to smoke alarm negligence.

This is according to new research from price comparison website Go.Compare, published this month (July 2025), which examined the company’s May 2025 survey of 2,000 UK adults in conjunction with FCA insurance numbers and statistics from British fire and rescue services.

The firm calculated the financial loss associated with possible fire damage claims in the 2023/24 financial year using average claim payout figures and the estimated number of fires at insured households without working alarms.

Go.Compare explained that if home cover policyholders do not own a smoke alarm, or fail to keep an existing one operational, then this could invalidate a subsequent claim in the event of a household fire. In turn, this would mean that policyholders would be left to stump up the sums needed to cover fire damage repair costs.

The firm’s research found that there were 13,458 dwelling fires in the UK in the year to March 2024 where a fire alarm was not installed or operational within the home.

Furthermore, fires in residences without a working smoke alarm accounted for 43% of all reported dwelling fires in the year ending March 2024, while 52% of reported fatalities were associated with dwelling fires.

‘Catastrophic consequences’

Go.Compare’s survey indicated that policyholders were unaware that failing to have a functioning smoke alarm could invalidate their home insurance policy – around 62% of the 2,000 respondents stated that they did not know claims could be denied if smoke alarms are not checked regularly.

The findings showed that 1% of respondents do not have a smoke alarm fitted, while only 6% check their smoke alarms work on at least a weekly basis.

Nathan Blackler, channel development manager at Go.Compare, said: “It goes without saying that failing to install and regularly test a smoke alarm could have catastrophic consequences.

“But, on top of the huge safety risk, your insurer likely won’t pay out if your smoke alarm wasn’t working when a fire occurred, so you’d suffer the financial consequences of the blaze – as well as the emotional ones.”