Year after year, U.S. homeowners travel long distances to celebrate the holidays with family and friends. As statistics have shown, when homeowners are away, criminals tend to play. Nationwide, for one, has documented a related uptick in certain claims during peak travel months. When examining three years' of claims data, it found that more than 15,000 home thefts occurred during November, December and January.

Recently Allstate Insurance Co. went one step further, suggesting that Hawaii residents are more vulnerable to holiday thefts than insureds in other parts of the country. The nation's largest publicly held personal lines insurer reports that theft-related insurance claims spike about 18 percent during November and December in the Aloha State alone.

Right behind theft is a surge in fire-related insurance claims, which increases by 16 percent during the holidays. Fire-related claims can be extremely costly for Hawaii homeowners, Allstate says, as the median cost of Christmas-tree claims exceed $100,000.

Among other costly holiday perils and fire hazards in Hawaii are:

The median cost of candle-related claims is $50,000.
The median cost for turkey fryer-related claims is $29,000.
The median cost for fireworks-related claims is $14,000.

Since 2008, the most expensive holiday fire claim arose from an incident involving an artificial Christmas tree in a Hawaii homeowner's living room. At the time, the claim amounted to a total financial loss of $2.4 million.

Allstate joins other insurers in reminding homeowners to exercise caution and consider potential safety hazards in the home this holiday season.

Special Reports /

Home Theft, Fire Claims Spike in Hawaii During Holidays

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