Unoccupied property insurance

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Unoccupied property insurance – why is it important?

A gap between tenants, renovation works, or waiting to sell your rental property? Unoccupied property insurance can keep you covered against owners’ liability risks – for example, if some old brickwork fell and caused an injury – as well as damage to your empty building, contents, and certain legal expenses and emergencies, like a plumbing issue.

Need insurance for an unoccupied commercial property? We provide cover for empty shops, offices, studios, and all sorts of business types. Just start a quote and tell us about your property.

  • landlord insurance for empty property risks, from owners’ liability to buildings damage
  • repair costs for damage or replacement costs if it can’t be fixed
  • claims paid in 24 hours for 80 per cent of settled claims

What does unoccupied landlord insurance cover?

Empty property insurance – also known as ‘unoccupied house insurance’ – is designed to cover liability costs if your empty property is blamed for an injury or property damage, plus certain legal costs. It can also cover damage to your building and contents.

  • Property owners’ liability insurance

    In case you’re legally responsible for injuries or property damage, as owner of the building.

  • Buildings insurance

    In case disaster hits and your unoccupied property gets damaged.

  • Landlords’ contents insurance

    In case disaster hits and your contents get damaged.

  • Legal expenses insurance

    In case you face legal costs in connection with your unoccupied property.

  • Property owners’ liability insurance

    In case you’re legally responsible for injuries or property damage, as owner of the building.

    What’s typically covered by property owners’ liability insurance?

    • legal liability for injuries, accidental loss, or damage, as the owner of the empty property

    For example:

    • while showing a prospective tenant around the property, they trip on a loose carpet tile and fall down a step, breaking their knee

  • Buildings insurance

    In case disaster hits and your unoccupied property gets damaged.

    What’s typically covered by buildings insurance?

    • damage to your empty property caused by incidents like fire, lightning, and explosion
    • the full rebuild cost declared for your property

    For example:

    • a fire causes extensive damage to your property, and you need to pay rebuild costs
    • lightning during a storm damages your empty property’s walls, chimneys, and windows, all of which need to be repaired or replaced before new tenants can move in

    What you’ll need additional cover for

    • accidental damage to the property caused by your tenants – you’ll need to add our specific accidental damage cover for this

  • Landlords’ contents insurance

    In case disaster hits and your contents get damaged.

    What’s typically covered by buildings insurance?

    • damage to your contents caused by incidents like fire, lightning and explosion
    • contents include things like your appliances, furniture, and household goods

    For example:

    • a violent storm causes water to leak into your property and damage your kitchen appliances
    • the deep fat fryer in a property adjacent to yours causes a fire, and damages some of your own furniture and other contents

  • Legal expenses insurance

    In case you face legal costs in connection with your unoccupied property.

    What’s typically covered by buildings insurance?

    • repossession – covering your legal costs when trying to regain possession of the property, and appointing a solicitor to represent you
    • property damage – covering your legal costs if over £1,000 of damage is made to your empty property, and appointing a solicitor for you
    • tax protection and contractual disputes – representing and negotiating for you, if a full enquiry is made into your personal tax affairs, or during a contractual dispute over goods and services

    For example:

    • HMRC begin an investigation into your tax affairs, in connection with your buy-to-let property – you need to recover the legal costs
    • squatters enter your property and you need to pay for legal support

This content has been created for general information purposes. Make sure you have the right level of landlord insurance by checking your policy documentation for details. Read our full Terms and Conditions

How much does unoccupied property insurance cost?

Find out how much you’ll pay by comparing prices from a range of trusted insurers. You choose what goes into your policy, so you only pay for what you need.

Prices start from £14.20 per month

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*The price is for building and £2 million property owners’ liability insurance only – 10% of customers paid £170.45 or less annually in 1st Jan – 31st May 2024. Equivalent to £14.20 a month (and excludes the extra costs for paying monthly). If you complete a quote, more types of cover will be available, including up to £5 million of property owners’ liability insurance. These all have additional costs.

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Empty property insurance FAQ

Whether you’re new to buying landlord insurance or you’ve been letting your property for a while, here are the answers to some commonly asked questions about landlords’ insurance. You can also check out our landlord insurance FAQs.

If your property is unoccupied for a period of 30 days or more, it’s often classed as ‘unoccupied’, or vacant – depending on the vacancy period defined by your insurer. Whether it’s due to renovation work, in a sale chain or between rental agreements, specific risks do come with vacant properties, so unoccupied house insurance, or cover for a flat or commercial property, is a popular landlord cover.

Our tailored unoccupied property insurance policies can cover common incidents like fire, lightning or explosion damage, or earthquake and aerial incidents, as well as your own liability as the owner, for third party damage or injury caused by your vacant property.

This will depend on your specific circumstances, the type of empty property you’re insuring and various other factors. Right now, our landlord policy prices start from £9.53 per month.

To work this out, 10% of our customers paid up to £114.35 a year for a landlord buildings cover only policy between 1st April 2023 – 30th June 2023. Equivalent to £9.53 per month based on a monthly cost when paying for the policy in one annual payment. Paying monthly is usually more expensive as you’ll pay interest. Most customers pay more than this but some pay less.

Home insurance is required when you want to insure the home you’re living in against accidental loss or damage.

Landlord insurance is different – it’s required when you own a property that you rent out to a third party, and don’t live in yourself. It covers different insurance risks from a home policy, taking into account the type of tenant you rent to and how long you’ve owned the property. It also allows you to insure the property and protect yourself against things like loss of rental income, and malicious damage caused by your tenants.

You aren’t legally required to take out a specific landlord policy, but remember – a conventional home insurance policy won’t cover you for rental activities, and a mortgage lender will usually demand you have specific landlord cover in place, before you let your property.

Popular covers include property owners’ liability and contents insurance, for accidents on your property, plus buildings cover to protect the property itself.

You can add a range of other important covers to your landlord insurance policy, all while keeping it simple with a single premium and a single renewal date. You might consider these covers:

As we’ve outlined above, there’s currently no legal obligation to take out a dedicated landlord insurance policy. However, a home insurance policy won’t cover you for the specific risks you and your tenants face, and a mortgage lender will usually require you to have buy-to-let insurance in place too, before renting out your property.

This content has been created for general information purposes. Make sure you have the right level of landlord insurance by checking your policy documentation for details. Read our full Terms and Conditions.

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