home insurance cancelled, 'unoccupied' during improvements
Discussion
we're having some home improvements done. Nothing major, just some woodwork, plastering and painting. To make it easier we have had a large-ish storage pod from a company that do these type of things. It is sitting on the drive and will be used to move some of the bulkier items of furniture, and some of the small clutter into (nothing of significant value) and we had planned to go and live at Mrs 2CV's parents during around 4-6 weeks, depending on how easy it is for the decorator to work around people living in the house. I rang the insurance in plenty of time, to ensure the pod contents covered. They then wanted to know a ton of information about the pod, the contents and the contractors doing the work.
Kind of expected most of that questioning, but what i hadn't expected was a note to come through from the insurer one evening telling me they were cancelling the insurance effective in 7 days. I then fretted till the morning until they reopened, and i called them to get clarification. They said they were OK with the pod thing, but the issue arose because we were leaving the house unoccupied during the works. I had been keen to stress with them that it was partially occupied as I would be returning every couple of days to check on things, and the contractors would be there in the daytimes. This wasn't really sufficient, and I have had to agree to 'occupy' the house whilst Mrs 2CV and baby 2CV vacate, regardless of how inconvenient this is for me. They seemed to feel that was OK, and revoked the cancellation.
Having looked into it, even the Financial Ombudsman doesn't have a definition of what 'unoccupied' means, and they agree on their website that it is vague and insurers don't define it in their terms. They also said that they often rule in favour of policyholders in the grey area, unless the insurer can prove that additional damage occurred due to a gap in time between something going wrong and it being spotted next time the policyholder comes to the property.
I had assumed I would just need to physically sleep in the property each night, but the FoS seems to suggest that's not necessary - providing I can prove it hasn't been left completely to rack and ruin, or left insecure in some way. I had then imagined I might just take timestamped photos of myself at the house at various times of day, whenever i am there! I'm still not clear on what i would need to prove, or what evidence the insurer would use to prove the house was somehow unoccupied. If I stayed in the house for the full 6 weeks, but was away one night only, and something happened on that night - would the insurer take this to be unoccupied? How could I prove otherwise?
Kind of expected most of that questioning, but what i hadn't expected was a note to come through from the insurer one evening telling me they were cancelling the insurance effective in 7 days. I then fretted till the morning until they reopened, and i called them to get clarification. They said they were OK with the pod thing, but the issue arose because we were leaving the house unoccupied during the works. I had been keen to stress with them that it was partially occupied as I would be returning every couple of days to check on things, and the contractors would be there in the daytimes. This wasn't really sufficient, and I have had to agree to 'occupy' the house whilst Mrs 2CV and baby 2CV vacate, regardless of how inconvenient this is for me. They seemed to feel that was OK, and revoked the cancellation.
Having looked into it, even the Financial Ombudsman doesn't have a definition of what 'unoccupied' means, and they agree on their website that it is vague and insurers don't define it in their terms. They also said that they often rule in favour of policyholders in the grey area, unless the insurer can prove that additional damage occurred due to a gap in time between something going wrong and it being spotted next time the policyholder comes to the property.
I had assumed I would just need to physically sleep in the property each night, but the FoS seems to suggest that's not necessary - providing I can prove it hasn't been left completely to rack and ruin, or left insecure in some way. I had then imagined I might just take timestamped photos of myself at the house at various times of day, whenever i am there! I'm still not clear on what i would need to prove, or what evidence the insurer would use to prove the house was somehow unoccupied. If I stayed in the house for the full 6 weeks, but was away one night only, and something happened on that night - would the insurer take this to be unoccupied? How could I prove otherwise?
Seems ott of your insurer
We bought a house in January and didn't move in until refurbishment work was done.
I took out buildings insurance from exchange of contracts and checked wording on policy which said it wild only cover us for the house being unoccupied for a maximum of 21 days in a row at a time.
Within that time we claimed on buildings insurance as we had burst pipes that needed to be located and excavated.
Insurers knew house was unoccupied at the time and had kobissue with dealing with the claim.
When I took out the policy I researched the 'Which' recommended insurers and LV came out top, so that's who we went with.
We bought a house in January and didn't move in until refurbishment work was done.
I took out buildings insurance from exchange of contracts and checked wording on policy which said it wild only cover us for the house being unoccupied for a maximum of 21 days in a row at a time.
Within that time we claimed on buildings insurance as we had burst pipes that needed to be located and excavated.
Insurers knew house was unoccupied at the time and had kobissue with dealing with the claim.
When I took out the policy I researched the 'Which' recommended insurers and LV came out top, so that's who we went with.
Generally unoccupied does mean not slept in over night and day time should not be relevant as most people work during the day.
All policies have an Unoccupancy Period which is generally 30 or 60 days, so for example you go on two weeks holiday you are within the unoccupancy period and are fine.
The issue in this instance is that the house is unoccupied and you are having building works undertaken and the two combined some insurers don't like which seems to be the case with your particular insurer.
Your situation would not be an issue with many insurers that are more flexible.
All policies have an Unoccupancy Period which is generally 30 or 60 days, so for example you go on two weeks holiday you are within the unoccupancy period and are fine.
The issue in this instance is that the house is unoccupied and you are having building works undertaken and the two combined some insurers don't like which seems to be the case with your particular insurer.
Your situation would not be an issue with many insurers that are more flexible.
http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications...
financial ombudsman says that it isn't simply someone sleeping there overnight, and they actually are more relaxed than that. Based on that web page they would rule in my favour as someone who wasn't sleeping there but was 'checking in' every few days, esp as the contractors are there every day and would tell me if something was wrong.
Pretty sure it was more of an issue for the contents cover than the buildings.
i think they s
t the bed because they thought because i was moving things into driveway storage that the property was in some way unliveable, so there was something i wasn't telling them. The bird on the phone seemed surprised when i said "OK I will just live in it then", so pretty sure they had got the wrong end of the stick.
financial ombudsman says that it isn't simply someone sleeping there overnight, and they actually are more relaxed than that. Based on that web page they would rule in my favour as someone who wasn't sleeping there but was 'checking in' every few days, esp as the contractors are there every day and would tell me if something was wrong.
Pretty sure it was more of an issue for the contents cover than the buildings.
i think they s
t the bed because they thought because i was moving things into driveway storage that the property was in some way unliveable, so there was something i wasn't telling them. The bird on the phone seemed surprised when i said "OK I will just live in it then", so pretty sure they had got the wrong end of the stick. Your home insurance contract will say something like "must not be left unoccupied for periods of over 21 days"
When you phoned and spoke to them and said about 4-6 weeks they have father matter of factly taken that as a breach of the terms and cancelled it.
Dig out your insurance policy terms, look at the wording, and if it’s say 21 days, just sleep over one night every 3 weeks and you will be fine.
When you phoned and spoke to them and said about 4-6 weeks they have father matter of factly taken that as a breach of the terms and cancelled it.
Dig out your insurance policy terms, look at the wording, and if it’s say 21 days, just sleep over one night every 3 weeks and you will be fine.
mangos said:
Seems ott of your insurer
We bought a house in January and didn't move in until refurbishment work was done.
I took out buildings insurance from exchange of contracts and checked wording on policy which said it wild only cover us for the house being unoccupied for a maximum of 21 days in a row at a time.
Within that time we claimed on buildings insurance as we had burst pipes that needed to be located and excavated.
Insurers knew house was unoccupied at the time and had kobissue with dealing with the claim.
When I took out the policy I researched the 'Which' recommended insurers and LV came out top, so that's who we went with.
It sounds like he'll still have contents (potentially valuable ones) in the house. And possibly builders with free access to the place to get the works done. So a different situation.We bought a house in January and didn't move in until refurbishment work was done.
I took out buildings insurance from exchange of contracts and checked wording on policy which said it wild only cover us for the house being unoccupied for a maximum of 21 days in a row at a time.
Within that time we claimed on buildings insurance as we had burst pipes that needed to be located and excavated.
Insurers knew house was unoccupied at the time and had kobissue with dealing with the claim.
When I took out the policy I researched the 'Which' recommended insurers and LV came out top, so that's who we went with.
sidekickdmr said:
Your home insurance contract will say something like "must not be left unoccupied for periods of over 21 days"
When you phoned and spoke to them and said about 4-6 weeks they have father matter of factly taken that as a breach of the terms and cancelled it.
Dig out your insurance policy terms, look at the wording, and if it’s say 21 days, just sleep over one night every 3 weeks and you will be fine.
There'll also be wording in there to cover the position when works are being done like this which I would think will supersede generic "unoccupied for x days" clauses.When you phoned and spoke to them and said about 4-6 weeks they have father matter of factly taken that as a breach of the terms and cancelled it.
Dig out your insurance policy terms, look at the wording, and if it’s say 21 days, just sleep over one night every 3 weeks and you will be fine.
OP - as you've now raised this with them, I would get them to confirm what you can and cannot do explicitly and in writing. e.g. you work/have business trips etc, so what do they require. IME decent insurers are pretty good at helping out. If yours isn't, consider changing insurer
Jonboy_t said:
How's that any different from you being on holiday for a bit? Apart from someone coming in to feed the cat every now and then?!?
i asked that exact thing, as just about any sane individual would, and was told that it was in fact different and, to paraphrase, it's their ball and they'll play whatever fking game they want!bobtail4x4 said:
because the builders bodge things and go home, later that night a pipe leaks gas/water everywhere.
no one in to spot it until too late, I see it often.
well yea i get the logic of that (where it would definitely expand the risk rating of the policy) but they seemed to not really mention that aspect. They majored on the angle that if i was moving any furniture out it must somehow be unliveable. I said no it's not, and they said oh OK. I get the impression they were figuring the work was far bigger than i was letting on.no one in to spot it until too late, I see it often.
sidekickdmr said:
Your home insurance contract will say something like "must not be left unoccupied for periods of over 21 days"
When you phoned and spoke to them and said about 4-6 weeks they have father matter of factly taken that as a breach of the terms and cancelled it.
Dig out your insurance policy terms, look at the wording, and if it’s say 21 days, just sleep over one night every 3 weeks and you will be fine.
well this is what i am going to ask them i think, to define occupied. When you phoned and spoke to them and said about 4-6 weeks they have father matter of factly taken that as a breach of the terms and cancelled it.
Dig out your insurance policy terms, look at the wording, and if it’s say 21 days, just sleep over one night every 3 weeks and you will be fine.
Paul Drawmer said:
Some insurance contracts define unoccupied by not being slept in for a certain time, or not having adequate furniture in.
i rang them today to check they did definitely revoke the cancellation, and thought i would ask them to define 'unoccupied' whilst i was on. I chatted to the bloke for about 10 minutes in the end about the situation and TBH I am none the wiser. I think ultimately they don't really care about the definition; the only thing that really matters is, if something happens and i claim, the loss adjuster needs to assess whether the damage indicates someone living there or not. If there is mould everywhere from a leaking pipe then it probably wasn't occupied. If a TV got smashed with a shoe then it probably was. That type of st. They have absolutely no way to assess whether you were home on a given day where no claims took place, clearly. We are in the process of a move. The move-to house was rented out but now unoccupied. We are having some work done to it.
Small kitchen extension, bathroom refurb, new windows.
We called insurers to cancel the landlord insurance.
Insurers said they could not insure the unoccupied property ( unfurnished). We ended up having to trawl insurers and most also refused. We have got it now but builders must be insured to cover their " mistakes".
We had to confirm the house would be visited and checked at least weekly ( we are there about 3/4 times a week anyway to do decorating/gardening, meet new neighbours so no issue there.
We also had to give details of expected timescales before occupation. Best guesses were acceptable.
We are going to sell the current house so may have to do similar for that too.
Unless we "play games" and each claim to live in different houses!
We won't take a chance and leave the present house uninsured if the sale is delayed. Not worth the risk in my view.
Small kitchen extension, bathroom refurb, new windows.
We called insurers to cancel the landlord insurance.
Insurers said they could not insure the unoccupied property ( unfurnished). We ended up having to trawl insurers and most also refused. We have got it now but builders must be insured to cover their " mistakes".
We had to confirm the house would be visited and checked at least weekly ( we are there about 3/4 times a week anyway to do decorating/gardening, meet new neighbours so no issue there.
We also had to give details of expected timescales before occupation. Best guesses were acceptable.
We are going to sell the current house so may have to do similar for that too.
Unless we "play games" and each claim to live in different houses!
We won't take a chance and leave the present house uninsured if the sale is delayed. Not worth the risk in my view.
it's totally OK to have no contents insurance if you have no contents in the house, and no buildings insurance if you only have builders doing work in there. Most decent builders have way sufficient public liability cover anyway. The arse would be getting them to admit full liability if anything went wrong. I guess your house could still fall down unrelated to the building work whilst it is going on but it's fairly unlikely.
My issue was that I wasn't having much work done, and so was only moving some furniture out so it didn't get ruined, not because were 'moving out' as it were.
I guess it's all or nothing!
My issue was that I wasn't having much work done, and so was only moving some furniture out so it didn't get ruined, not because were 'moving out' as it were.
I guess it's all or nothing!
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