My insurance renewal had some odd "clarifications" to a many clauses of the policy. Some were fairly cosmetic but they changed quite a lot to "if the house is unoccupied" and I couldn't see a definition of unoccupied.
I think they were referring to left empty for ages but as their agent couldn't really give me a decent answer other than waffle about what it might have meant when he last spoke to an underwriter ( - do they really ever let the call boys and girls out of their pens??). SoI thought I'd try here.
The follow up question to him was "if we've paid for the extended absence up to 60 days and we are away is the house unoccupied. And if so, if our daughter goes and stays for a night or two on day 20 are we wasting our money extending it from 40 to 60 days".
Anyway, we went with someone else, as that provider increased the premium by about 50% in the year for no good reason but found themselves able to take about 30% back off, still ending up more expensive that a policy with better cover plus some cashback.
Anyone have any idea about the question? CGN maybe?
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This is what the ombudsman has to say if it helps:
"If the insurer hasn’t provided a clear definition of what unoccupied means, we’ll use our own interpretation. This means we might say your property is still ‘occupied’ as long as you’ve visited it reasonably frequently. It doesn’t matter if you’ve not been sleeping or living there.
The insurer must not reject your claim unreasonably. For example, if an event causes damage in the first 30 days of your property being unoccupied, we’ll usually say the insurer should settle your claim. It doesn’t matter if nobody lived in or visited the property during that time."
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Daughter and her hubster left their house near Plymouth unoccupied after a his job took him to Merseyside and they lived with his folks in NE Wales until stuff caught up.
Their insurance had an unoccupancy clause similar to that you describe.
They were advised that as long as there was somebody there overnight for a period, maybe 48 hours, them the clock stopped/restarted.
They had a timetable between themselves, his parents and me/Mrs B that meant somebody was there for the requisite period at requisite intervals.
I covered one weekend over the six or so months involved. Met some friends in the Torbay area, had day on the beach. Gave D's gaff a deep clean as they'd left it expecting next visit to be between exchange and completion. Then buyer wobbled off at last minute and it had to be re-marketed.
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I asked the same question of my house insurance company a few years ago due to extended absence over the winter in Spain.
They confirmed that the clock would start running again if the house was occupied if only for a night. Daughter was happy to visit a couple of times to pick up mail and check up on things and this apparently met the requirement.
I made sure that she used the internet connection and logged on to the desktop to ensure there was some sort of "audit trail" if a claim was ever refused - not put to the test.
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House insurance and absence - Biggles
