Mrs Zip's mum died and the house is now empty. The insurers will now only cover damage by aliens landing on a Wednesday.
The renewal is up soon and many insurers don't like the house being empty for more than 60 days. How do they define empty? If we slept over one night would we then get another 60 days?
We are up there at least once a week clearing stuff does that mean it's not unoccupied?
We had exactly this with FiL - actually it predated his death as he spent a little time in a care home. We actually didn't care about damage but needed something that included liability for the sake of viewings prior to sale.
Just ask a broker to find a company that does it. We seem to have used Abacus Insurance Services
which I would never have found myself.
You should also ask them exactly what they mean by empty, it seems to have generally tightened up in recent years but each insurer has their own definition so you can't just assume.
Most insurance companies offer policies for properties like this.. Going through probate etc and unoccupied.
It's expensive for what it is as I guess you found out.
I'd assume what occupied' is is defined in the existing policy.
When my nans house went thorough it, as sole beneficiary i took a risk and let the insurance lapse, saved the estate, and therefore me, about £700.
I don't think there's realy any way around it other than the estate taking out insurance for it being unoccupied until it's sold.
Edit.. Remember insuring it is an estate expense, so the executor would normally pay for insurance out of the the estate money, rather than a family member paying it directly.
Edit 2... I found Liverpool Victoria offerd the best quote when I looked.
We had basic cover for MIL's house for about the 6 years she was in a Nursing Home.
Yeah, it's pricey. Plus you need to turn off the water, drain the radiators and make sure the property is inspected on a weekly basis.
Yeah, it's pricey. Plus you need to turn off the water, drain the radiators and make sure the property is inspected on a weekly basis.
Friends of mine were mid-sale of a property they previously rented out. All the renters had gone a couple of weeks when they popped in to clear some stuff, only out to find a tiny water leak had collapsed a ceiling, ruined two floors and nearly killed the sale. Thankfully they were just within in the unoccupied limit on their insurance so the £15K of damage was covered.
Moral - turn off the water.
We solved a similar issue by moving our daughter in to the empty house. She’s at university and students get an exemption for the council tax.
Just made it easier all round for the house to be occupied.
Yeah, it's pricey. Plus you need to turn off the water, drain the radiators and make sure the property is inspected on a weekly basis.
Won't that actually depend on the policy conditions? It certainly wasn't the case with my mothers unoccupied house (2019 ish) where we left the central heating on frost setting and both us and the neighbours checked on the property very regularly... and the insurers were OK with that.
drain the radiators
That wouldn't work over winter, as you'd need to have the heating on a low/minimum schedule to prevent damp and mould...
I had to do this recently after my mum died (so, sorry for your loss and all). I found:
1) It was far less painful all round to stick with the same insurer she'd used forever. Other insurers were almost universally either "you must be joking" or "call us to discuss how much money we can take you for."
2) The "renewal" quote had various provisos like the house must be inspected at least I think once every two weeks. I expect this will vary by insurer/policy.
3) The list of things not covered was extensive, stuff like damage due to water leaks was excluded.
4) They insured it unoccupied for 12 months. Come the next renewal I got an "unfortunately we are unable..." message. Fortunately, it was in the final stages of finalising the sale by that point.
I recall that somewhere along the way "has it ever been uninsured in the last [mumble] years?" caused an issue back when I was selling my old house, though I don't remember details now.
Oh, and, nothing to do with insurance but,
5) Despite being unoccupied with every gas and electric item either off or unplugged, British Gas is showing a usage cost of over £1,000 in utilities. Check the meter readings, ideally with an official reading either via a smart meter or a visit from a meter reader.
"inspected on a weekly basis"
Well of course that depends on the insurer and the whole point of shopping around is to find one that doesn't have such an unreasonable condition attached.
I'm surprised by how much effort it took to arrange, after all pretty much everyone dies (maybe moves into a care home first) and when it's the 2nd spouse the house is unoccupied until sold. It's an entirely commonplace situation that probably most of us will encounter at some point in our lives. It's not that uncommon to have a modest empty period when moving house also (or eg a rental house that's between residents).
Firstly, I’m sorry to hear about your loss. Condolences to you and your Mrs Zip.
I went through this last year, and after much ringing round, I contacted my local national broker, Coversure.
https://www.coversure.co.uk/halifax/
They were great tbh, straight talking and fully aware of the inns and outs of the unoccupied position. I’d recommend them, speak to Philip Dalton. It wasn’t the cheapest, but it was also the only policy that would refund part premium in the event of disposing of the house mid term.
It is expensive I m afraid. My neighbours house flooded when it was empty pre sale, as posted above, a small unidentified leak soon escalated.
I go away a fair bit so chose a 90 day allowable unoccupied clause. I do have to perform occupier type tasks, washing, showering etc when in situ.
Yeah, it's pricey. Plus you need to turn off the water, drain the radiators and make sure the property is inspected on a weekly basis
Not necessarily, make sure you read & adhere to insurance conditions, had to do this for a friends house and the t&c's said stat at 15C & loft hatch open & inspection every two weeks!
"inspected on a weekly basis"
Well of course that depends on the insurer and the whole point of shopping around is to find one that doesn't have such an unreasonable condition attached.
For me personally it wasn't particularly onerous as the house was fairly local and I was over there regularly to deal with moving stuff out. The "inspection" I assume is just to check for things like (as said above) burst pipes left leaking for months, and for someone to be 'seen' coming and going to discourage squatters etc. I wasn't spending half a day conducting a survey three times a month, by the end I was mostly just collecting post and most of that was binning flyers so there wasn't a huge visible pile behind the door.
Friends of mine were mid-sale of a property they previously rented out. All the renters had gone a couple of weeks when they popped in to clear some stuff, only out to find a tiny water leak had collapsed a ceiling, ruined two floors and nearly killed the sale. Thankfully they were just within in the unoccupied limit on their insurance so the £15K of damage was covered.
Moral - turn off the water.
My parents house that had been vacant after a tenant left in the middle of the night was raided (probably by the same tenant) a couple of months later. My mum got a call that there was water pouring out the eaves - scrotes had removed every door, kitchen cupboard, boiler, radiator etc, leaving the feed to the loft cold tank live. Whole house was absolutely wrecked. Luckily this happened within 60 days of the tenant departing, so the insurance was still valid. Cost, even thirty years ago was tens of thousands - all floors, ceilings, 2 bathrooms, kitchen, replastering, new CH system, boiler...
I had this dilemma too, but I just risked it and left the house empty for the year - I turned the water off, left the CH on frost protection, informed the neighbours that it was empty and asked them to keep an eye on it, and I inspected it once a week, it was fine.
