Unoccupied Property Insurance

Unoccupied property insurance is insuring your property (by insuring your buildings, your contents or both) whilst you are not actually living in the property. There are a few types of insurance that you can get for this circumstance ranging from insuring the property before a tenant moves in to insuring a property that you are going to renovate and then sell on.



If you get the basic level of cover then it will cover the buildings and contents from any cases of fire, lightning, earthquake, explosion, aircraft and subsidence damage. This is the standard level of cover on unoccupied property insurance and will protect the property and the things that you have left in there. This insurance is usually more expensive than most property insurance as the property is at a higher risk of incurring damage as there will be nobody in the property to notice any damage immediately after it has happened.

The second level of cover will cover all the things in the basic cover level but will also include things such as storm, flood or weight of snow damage, escape of water and escape of oil and collision by any animal or vehicle. This level of cover is one that will cover a lot of the perils that may happen but leaves out cover for things such as theft or attempted theft or malicious damage. You can get these last two perils covered by choosing level three cover which will cover an unoccupied property for the same things that it would if the property had someone living in there.

Due to the levels of cover the premium that you pay will increase as you get the higher levels of cover on the policy; this is due to the higher likelihood of their being a claim on the policy the more things that it covers against. There are also certain things like subsidence that are covered on all the policies apart from if you are selling the property as the insurers will not cover a long term peril such as subsidence if you are planning to sell the house on.

The excess that you may pay on this type of policy may be higher than the standard one hundred pound excess simply because of the higher risk; therefore you may be given either a two hundred and fifty pound or five hundred pound excess whilst the property is unoccupied. If the property is vacant but will be let out eventually then there may be a time limit on the policy in which you must find a tenant and get them in to occupy the property, this is generally a ninety day time limit and if you choose that policy and then don’t get a tenant in time then the insurer will cancel the policy and you will lose cover after the period is up.

So if you have a vacant property that you want to insure it then follow this link to get a quote for unoccupied property insurance.