Short Term House Insurance

Short term house insurance provides the temporary cover you may need if you are leaving your home – or one that is normally occupied by tenants – empty and unoccupied for longer than a month or so.

The insurance might provide valuable cover, during any number of occasions or reasons for the property lying empty for a while:

• you are taking an extended holiday or visiting relatives overseas;
• your job is taking you to a different part of the country or even overseas for several months at a time;
• the builders are in whilst your home is being extended and refurbished;
• the house is normally let but is unoccupied for several months in the period between previous tenants moving out and new ones moving in; or
• the property is subject to probate and remains unoccupied whilst the process determines its longer-term ownership.

Why do you need short term house insurance?

During this time, your home continues to need the protection of insurance – against a whole range of threats and perils from fire, explosions, earthquakes, smoke damage, floods, impacts, vandalism and theft.

But at the same time, you expect the property to be empty for only several months.

That is when the protection you need may be provided by short term house insurance.

Indeed, the year round cover that is typically provided by your standard home insurance or by landlord insurance when the property is more or less continuously occupied, is unlikely to continue for very long after it becomes unoccupied. Most such insurers severely limit or remove altogether the level of cover after your house has been unoccupied for 30-45 consecutive days or more (the precise period varying from one insurer to another).

The reason for that is because an empty and unoccupied house is invariably exposed to greater risks that one that is occupied. Such properties are notoriously attractive to intruders, squatters, vandals and arsonists, whilst otherwise routine repairs and maintenance might develop into damaging incidents if they go unnoticed and unattended.

In order to keep your home fully safeguarded, therefore, you are likely to need short term house insurance for the duration of it remaining unoccupied.

What you need to know when buying cover

This kind of insurance provides comprehensive cover for your house over the short term, but there are still steps you may be expected to take to mitigate the risks of loss or damage:

avoid advertising the fact that the property is empty for example – by arranging for any deliveries to be taken in promptly and stored out of sight, interior lights in selected rooms on timer switches, and the garden kept neat and tidy;

• the use of appropriately high quality locks on exterior doors and windows; and
• regular inspection visits – either by friends or family or by a professional property management and security firm.

Why choose us?

At UKinsuranceNET we share your concern to keep your property safe and secure during any period it might be temporarily left unoccupied.