There are lots of reasons why your property may be unoccupied at any given time – but have you factored this in to your insurance provision? In particular, are you comfortable you are covered in the event of flooding?
With major floods in recent years increasing the risk profile of many more areas across the country, it’s worth assessing how well you are covered and if you need to do more.
Certainly the Flood Re insurance scheme has given more people the guarantee of being able to get insurance for properties at risk of flood. However, Flood Re schemes do not cover unoccupied properties and many insurers are similarly declining to offer cover.
From holiday homes and second homes to buy-to-let and bed-and-breakfast properties, you may already plan for and expect your property to be unoccupied regularly for periods of time. Other situations may be unplanned; for example, you may inherit a property that will be unoccupied until it can be sold.
Alternatively, you may have a temporary period of moving out of your own home during renovation or redecoration. Many homeowners do not realise that this can render their home ‘unoccupied’ in the eyes of the insurers, depending on the contract value and length of time the work takes. This may in turn result in the insurance cover being restricted or even invalidated.
Whatever the reason, clearly an unoccupied property carries additional risk, especially in a flood situation. We are seeing many clients come to us at Fairweather Insurance because of our ability to assess and write customised insurance policies for individual properties. Although we evaluate and issue the policies ourselves, they are backed by one of the UK’s largest insurance companies. We are one of the very few insurance brokers in the country with the ability – and experience – to do this.
The policies we write are very flexible and cost-effective. Typically insurance policy lengths for unoccupied properties are for 3, 6 or 12 months, and we are able to insure many properties that the main insurers do not cover. So, before you pack up to ‘unoccupy’ your property, contact the Fairweather Insurance team for the right advice and guidance…
