Can I Insure an Unoccupied House if I Don’t Live in the UK?

Yes, you can insure an unoccupied UK house while living abroad, provided you have a valid UK passport and a UK bank account to manage the policy.

From an insurer's perspective, insuring and managing an unoccupied home from another country creates the following concerns:

• How will you keep up with home maintenance and other risk management practices to keep the property in a good state of repair, while still lived in, to deter thieves and vandals?
• Who will be inspecting the property to minimise damage from incidents like fixing burst pipes, or damage (like a damaged roof after a storm)

The reason we flag this is that you still have to comply with your policy, and not doing so can leave you with declined claims and a cost to reinstate the property out of your own pocket.

You must appoint a local person, whether that be an estate agent, family friend or neighbour to keep on top of the property inspections, maintenance duties and policy compliance.  So you must also share the policy with your appointed representatives, and in particular, these key areas of compliance: 

• Inspection Duty: You (or a responsible person acting for you) must inspect the property externally and internally in line with your policy.  Insuristic's Unoccupied Insurance policy requires this to be done once every 14 days, and our Probate policy, once every 30 days.

• Utility Isolation: All services must be turned off at the mains, except for gas or electricity needed for security or heating.

• Winter Heating Requirement: If the cover you have chosen includes cover for escape of water and you haven't drained the water systems, to maintain your cover you must:

  • From 1st October to 31st March, keep the heating on continuously (24/7) at a minimum of 15°C ;

  • and leave the loft hatch open.

• Fire Risk Management: All combustible materials, such as newspapers and junk mail, must be removed during every 30-day inspection.

• Home Contents:
  • Remove all valuables over £1,500 from the property and put them in safe storage so you aren't left with a shortfall in the event of a claim.
  • Review your policy to check for items that may be excluded like business equipment, jewellery, artwork etc. which aslo need to be put in safe storage.

To get a quote or find out more about our policy cover, please visit the page that is appropriate to your situation:

• Probate House Insurance (available from the point the property becomes empty until the property is sold, inherited or occupied again.
• Unoccupied Home Insurance: for all other situations, e.g. for property up for sale, between tenants, during renovation, when the owner is in care, etc.

If you have further questions, visit our Unoccupied Home Insurance FAQs or Probate Insurance FAQs pages.