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Seasonal or vacation homes are commonly unoccupied for part of the year but aren’t truly vacant since the homeowner is still using the space. The first step in buying vacant home insurance is to find the right carrier for you. Check to see if your home insurance provider offers an endorsement or standalone policy. If you want to buy a separate policy, shop around for providers that offer vacant home coverage in your state.
In fact, an insurer might charge you 50% to 60% more to insure a vacant home, according to the Insurance Information Institute. However, there may be some coverage exceptions, especially around types of damage that can get worse if not reported right away. Thieves and vandals can have run of a property that is unoccupied for a long period of time. A burst pipe can cause enormous water damage if no one is there to spot and stop the problem.
What is Vacant Home Insurance?
A home can be vacant for 30 to 60 days, depending on the company, before vacant home insurance is required. John is the editorial director for CarInsurance.com, Insurance.com and Insure.com. We have prorated insurance products available, allowing our customers to pay only for the time they need. This approach lets us help our customers save on insurance costs.
Before purchasing vacant home insurance, it’s important to decide if you need a separate policy or whether you can add an endorsement to an existing homeowners insurance policy instead. An endorsement can be used to modify an existing policy to cover the home for temporary vacancies. Say you own a rental home, for instance, and your tenant has given their notice. You expect it to take a month or two to find a replacement tenant and get them moved in.
What is considered a vacant house?
The property is unoccupied and unfurnished during the renovation process and is susceptible to weather, vandalism and theft while under construction. Bankrate’s editorial team writes on behalf of YOU – the reader. Our goal is to give you the best advice to help you make smart personal finance decisions. We follow strict guidelines to ensure that our editorial content is not influenced by advertisers. Our editorial team receives no direct compensation from advertisers, and our content is thoroughly fact-checked to ensure accuracy.
While it’s true that insurance for a home you’re not using can cost more than your standard policy, it’s usually not an expense you’ll be paying forever. Otherwise, you’re at risk of losing everything in the event of an accident or disaster. The insurance has lapsed, but the mortgage is already paid off. You don’t need special vacant home insurance for this house, even if it’s highly recommended you do protect it at some point. Any home you own but aren’t living in is vacant in the eyes of insurers. While there may be some variations in the fine print from one insurance company to the next, your contract with your provider will be very clear on this.
How Much Will Insurance Cost for My Vacant Home?
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You can learn more about the standards we follow in producing accurate, unbiased content in oureditorial policy. Rebecca Lake is a journalist with 10+ years of experience reporting on personal finance. No one lives there, and all or most of the furnishings have been removed. By contrast, an unoccupied home typically is one where everything in the house is left in place as if the owners or tenants expect to return.
A homeowners insurance declaration page explains key facts about your homeowners insurance. Vandalism and malicious mischief insurance is a type of insurance coverage that protects against losses sustained as a result of vandals. American Modern Insurance offers a policy that covers losses due to fire, lightning, wind, hail, explosion and others. Actual cash value coverage is available that considers depreciation when settling your claim.
SmartFinancial Insurance is a digital insurance comparison engine, providing real-time rates and insurance services in all 50 states through its relationships with carrier and agency partners. Derek San Filippo Home Insurance ExpertDerek has over 10 years of experience writing web content for a variety of online publications. His pieces range from finances and entertainment to religion and philosophy. For the past three years, Derek has focused on writing financial literacy articles for credit unions throughout the country.
(Very few top providers do.) Instead, if your home is going to be empty for more than 30 days, you can purchase an endorsement or vacancy permit. The details will be in your contract, but the conversation itself is one you’ll have to have with your agent. In some cases, an unoccupied home might not require special insurance. For example, let’s say you split your time between residences in Florida and New York. Your home insurance company may view the properties as less risky than a typical vacant home because it assumes there’s a standard of care for both residences. Check with your insurance agent to verify coverage on the empty home.
Vacant home insurance is a policy designed specifically for a home that will be empty for an extended period. Coverage includes losses for events such as fire, lightning, wind, and hail. One thing to consider is that American Modern settles claims at the actual cash value, meaning they take depreciation into account following a loss. Foremost Insurance, available in all 50 states, is part of the Farmers Insurance family. Foremost Insurance makes getting coverage easy by walking the homeowner through the paperwork and allowing them to cancel the policy whenever they're ready. Better yet, they reimburse the homeowner the prorated amount for cancellation.
That said, we did find a few top home insurance providers with special coverage for unoccupied property. When we made our final selection, here’s the key criteria we were looking at. Many insurance companies allow the house to be vacant for a certain period of time, say 60 days, before the policy expires.
Vacant home insurance can be its own policy or added on to an existing homeowners insurance policy as an endorsement. If you discover that you require vacant home insurance, ask if you can obtain it with a simple rider to your current homeowners policy. If that is not an option, you will probably need to purchase a separate vacant home insurance policy. Although some insurers are reluctant to sell vacant home insurance policies, others offer this coverage. However, in other cases, you will need to purchase a separate vacant home insurance policy.
