If you leave a home unoccupied for more than a month, your house insurance is likely to be invalid. What you need is a specialist insurer.
Did you know that your house insurance policy is likely to lapse if you leave your home empty for more than 30 days without notifying the insurer? And yet there are hundreds of thousands of properties left empty for longer periods across the country so what do their owners do?
I'm talking about people with second homes or holiday lets, derelict houses that are undergoing complete renovation, or homes that are left empty after the owner has died or gone into a care home.
Upon notification, most insurers will extend their cover for an empty property for, typically, three months if the situation is only temporary. But for properties left unoccupied for longer periods you need a specialist insurance broker.
Usually they'll insist on high standards of security such as key-operated window locks and the promise that utilities such as water and gas are turned off. Two specialist insurers told me they would expect a property to be inspected at least once a week and for these visits to be properly logged - something that might be difficult to achieve if you live some distance from the empty home and don't have accommodating neighbours to do it for you. One of them also said there would be no cover for malicious damage or flood damage.
Longer-term empty home policies are also typically taken out for a full year, rather than just for the period the property is unoccupied. And, naturally, they're more expensive than common-or-garden home insurance policies!
Holiday lets or buy-to-let properties are a different matter as there will be regular periods where the property is unoccupied. Companies such as Letsure specialise in insurance for the letting industry but contact the British Insurance Brokers' Association for names of those who deal with other types of unoccupied property insurance.
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