95% of house owners don’t understand what happens to their insurance on the home when the house becomes empty or unoccupied. This is often how owners find themselves with no coverage after submitting a claim and the insurance company learns the house wasn’t occupied at the time of claim.

Every home-owner’s insurance policy is different, however one factor is for sure. Householders insurers can not still insure a home, if the house isn’t being lived in by the first homeowner. A house that’s fully vacant (moved out) can end insurance more quickly than other situations.

Currently, there are thousands of homes that don’t have any insurance coverage, however the homeowners believe the home is totally lined because they only don’t perceive the provisions of their insurance policy.

Merely, people don’t seem to be aware that they’re risking everything. Common samples of cases that lead to the house considered vacant are:

o House sits empty for ninety days whereas the owners have moved out of state and are expecting the old home to sell o A home is unoccupied for seventy two days whereas the children decide what to try to to with the house of a deceased parent o A townhouse sits empty for five months while the owner, a college faculty member, is teaching a semester abroad. The professor thinks the home can be covered because he asked the neighbor to check in on the home o An expatriate is living abroad whereas his house back in the US is being lived in by a friend. He failed to bother the householders insurer and switch the policy over to a landlord policy. The fact remains that almost everybody in these sorts of situations do not grasp the risks involved.

If there were a claim in one of those situations, the householders insurance company could deny the claim and refund some months premium, canceling the policy.

For instance, a washer hose leak could be a common claim. If an owner had come home after work for example to find the hose leaking, the claim could have been contained. Instead, the owner is not living in the house and the hose leaks for 9 days till the owner’s sister comes into the house to check on things. In this example a $10,000 claim has turned into a $100,000 claim as a result of three floors being ruined and 12 of the walls are currently infested with mold and rot.

But, the owner is shocked to learn that they are only eligible to receive $10,000 from the insurance company and the full extent of the damage is not being covered. Again, all of this assumes the insurer is generous enough to produce any coverage in the least in this case! In several cases, this claim would be totally denied, with the insurer claiming the house was vacant and therefore the owner did not inform the insurance company of the situation. However, expecting a claim to be covered for $100,000 in this instance, and receiving a check for 1/10th of this quantity comes as a shock to the home owner.

Another great article by Belleville Real Estate