By the Beacon Living Group team · 10 July 2026 · 7 min read
Summary: if your home is uninhabitable after a fire, flood or escape of water, call your insurer before booking anywhere to stay. Most buildings and combined home policies include alternative accommodation cover as standard: the insurer pays for temporary housing, aiming for a similar home in your local area, until repairs finish or the policy limit is reached. Beacon Living Group takes these family placements in South Manchester, real houses rather than hotel rooms, working to the standard insurers, loss adjusters and relocation bureaux require. Current stock is a four-bedroom house in Wythenshawe (M22) sleeping eight, with a private driveway for four vehicles, at £135 a night on placements of 28 nights or more. This guide explains the process calmly, step by step.
Nobody reads about temporary accommodation on a good day. If you are here, something has probably gone badly wrong at home, and you are juggling a dozen urgent questions with nowhere quiet to think about any of them. So this guide does one thing: it walks through what actually happens next, in order, in plain English, including the parts insurers assume you already know.
Once everyone is safe and the emergency services have finished, call your insurer's claims line. Most run 24-hour lines for exactly this. Have your policy number if you can find it; do not worry if you cannot.
This is the step that catches people out. Booking a hotel or rental without the insurer's approval can jeopardise what the claim will cover. Ask the claims handler directly: "Where should we stay tonight, and how is it paid for?" Emergency hotel nights are normally arranged or approved on that first call.
The insurer appoints a loss adjuster to assess the damage, confirm whether the home is uninhabitable and estimate the repair timeline. That assessment drives everything: what accommodation you get and for how long.
If repairs will take weeks or months, the insurer or its accommodation bureau arranges a longer-term placement, aiming for like-for-like: a home of similar standard, close to your schools, work and routine. This is where a serviced house replaces the hotel, and where you can and should express preferences.
Alternative accommodation cover is a standard feature of most buildings and combined home policies (contents-only policies usually exclude it). It pays for somewhere to live while your home cannot be lived in, up to a limit set in the policy, and the guiding principle is continuity: a similar property, in your local area, so school runs, commutes and family routine survive the disruption. If a suitable property is not immediately available, a hotel or B&B bridges the first nights. Check your own schedule for the cover limit, and if you rent rather than own, rehousing may fall to your landlord's insurer, to your own contents policy if it includes alternative accommodation cover, or to the council's homelessness team as the safety net. Check both policies early, because tenants are often less covered than they assume.
Two honest notes from the accommodation side of the fence. First, "like-for-like" is a principle, not a guarantee of perfection: in a tight market the first offer may be a compromise, and polite, specific pushback about location or space is normal and usually productive. Second, fire and serious flood repairs run months more often than anyone expects at the start, so it is worth asking for a placement that would genuinely work for a school term, not a fortnight.
A hotel solves night one and fails by week two. There is no washing machine when everything you own smells of smoke, no kitchen when eating out three times a day has lost its novelty, no space for children to be children, and no door between a video call and a toddler. A serviced house gives a displaced family the shape of normal life back: bedrooms, laundry, a kitchen, a table to do homework at, parking outside. That stability is worth more to a family mid-claim than anything else a placement can offer, and it is usually no more expensive to the insurer than weeks of hotel rooms and meal allowances.
If you are a loss adjuster, a claims handler or an alternative accommodation bureau placing households in Greater Manchester, this section is the part of the page written for you. The rest of it is written for the family, deliberately, because they usually find it first.
A newly refurbished four-bedroom house in Wythenshawe, South Manchester (M22), sleeping eight. Two double bedrooms, a twin room whose single beds zip together into a queen, a single room and a lounge sofa bed. A private driveway holding up to four cars or vans. An enclosed garden. A full kitchen, a washing machine and a tumble dryer, fast wifi at 190Mbps or more, blackout curtains in every bedroom and self check-in via a smart lock at any hour, which matters when a placement happens at nine on a Friday night.
Two things stated plainly so they do not surface awkwardly at handover. There is one family bathroom with a shower plus a separate downstairs WC, which is 1.5 bathrooms rather than two, and for a household of eight that is a genuine constraint. And Beacon Living Group was incorporated in March 2026, so there is no long placement history to point at yet. We would rather you knew both from this page than from a phone call after you had instructed us.
The location suits South Manchester decants specifically. It is a short drive from Wythenshawe Hospital, minutes from the M56 and the M60 at junction 4, on the Metrolink Airport Line, and close to schools and everyday shops, which is what like-for-like usually means in practice for a family that needs to keep the school run intact.
Placement lengths follow the repair timeline, not a booking block. Month to month, extended when the reinstatement overruns, and we both know it usually does. There is no penalty for extending and no requirement to commit to a fixed end date you cannot yet know.
Invoicing goes to the instructing party, not the family. Invoices carry the claim or placement reference, and where a placement spans several months, or where you have more than one household with us, everything consolidates onto a single monthly invoice rather than arriving as separate documents. Net-30 is available for approved accounts. New accounts start on payment in advance, which is a normal position for a young company and one we would rather state than negotiate later.
Rates are published rather than quoted case by case. The whole house is £180 a night short stay, £162 a night from seven nights and £135 a night from twenty-eight. Most decants fall in the last band, so £135 a night with all bills, wifi and linen included is the number to work with. You are not going to get a different figure because a claim has a bigger limit on it.
One named contact throughout. You deal with Omid directly on WhatsApp, phone or email, not a booking system. A message during the working day is usually answered within a couple of hours, and where the house is free a placement can be confirmed and occupied the same day.
If you place families in Greater Manchester and want a local provider who answers the phone, introduce yourself or call 07544 843569. We are happy to be added to a supplier list, complete a vendor form or provide the usual documentation. Our corporate stays page sets out the invoicing, purchase order and payment terms in full, and the Wythenshawe page carries a live availability calendar so you can see whether the house is free before you pick up the phone.
Related reading. See our page on serviced accommodation in South Manchester for NHS and key workers.
Your insurer, if your buildings or combined policy includes alternative accommodation cover, which most do as standard, up to the policy limit. Call the insurer before booking anything yourself.
Like-for-like in the local area is the principle: a similar home close to schools and work. Hotels bridge the first nights; longer repairs mean a placement such as a serviced house.
Until the home is habitable, subject to your policy limit. The loss adjuster's repair estimate sets the placement, extended if works overrun.
You can express preferences and suggest providers, and reasonable requests are normally accommodated, but the insurer must approve before anything is booked.
Through accommodation providers and bureaux. Beacon Living Group takes exactly these placements: a family-ready serviced house in South Manchester with a named contact, clear invoicing and flexible extensions as standard.
Yes. Invoices go to the instructing party with the claim or placement reference on them, consolidated monthly where a placement spans several months. Net-30 for approved accounts, payment in advance for new ones.
£135 a night for the whole four-bedroom house on placements of 28 nights or more, which is where most decants sit. All bills, wifi and linen are included. Shorter placements are £162 a night from seven nights and £180 a night below that.
Where the house is free, the same day. Check-in is self-service via a smart lock at any hour, so a family displaced on a Friday evening does not have to wait until Monday.
The placement extends at the same rate. There is no penalty for extending and no fixed end date required at the outset, because reinstatement timelines move and pretending otherwise helps nobody.
About Beacon Living Group. Beacon Living Group is a Manchester guaranteed rent and serviced accommodation operator. It provides serviced houses for families, contractors and insurance placements across Greater Manchester, booked direct with a local team. Beacon Living Group Ltd is registered in England and Wales, company no. 17076795.
Families: we will help you understand your options. Claims professionals: a like-for-like house, a named contact, clear invoicing.
