Vacant property insurance is a necessity, but it is an expensive one at that. There are plenty of reasons that an unattended home is more costly to insure but the biggest one is your peace of mind. Property is a huge investment that must be cared for from start to finish regardless of whether or not you have time to be around. Taking a quick look at dilapidated buildings reveals only one main cause: a lack of maintenance, upkeep, and surveillance. Usually it takes a major event to throw a home into disrepair and the easiest way for this to happen is for the property to sustain damage that you can’t afford to repair.
Increased Risk
The reason that vacant property insurance happens to be much greater than regular home insurance is the fact that the potential for costly occurrences is much higher. If a fire breaks out and nobody is around to call emergency crews the damage is likely to be exponentially higher than in an occupied building, but that is definitely not the only risk. Liability coverage is the main function of this type of insurance since an unattended home is a criminal, vandal, and intruder magnet. Although these people have no permission to be on your property they can still sue you if they get hurt. There is no reason to invite this kind of disaster when insurance is so easy, despite its cost, to obtain.
Lightening, civil unrest, wind and hail, and explosions are often covered by unoccupied property insurance as well. These can be some of the most damaging surprises, unable to be predicted or controlled by an absent homeowner. Insurance companies cover these only because they are unlikely to happen but absolutely devastating when they do. It’s impossible to be too prepared so insurance is really the only way to take a vacation or sell your home without worry of paying for expensive liabilities or natural events.
Necessary “Optionals”
Since vacant property insurance is considered such high risk, some really necessary coverage options will have to be purchased at higher premiums. A vacation home, or even the home of a vacationer, may be filled with valuable property that often isn’t part of the standard vacancy policy but is uninsurable by a regular home contents policy. Water damage is also another potentially devastating factor that insurance companies hope you don’t remember to account for. A single drip or leak could turn into thousands of dollars worth of damage if the proper additional coverage is not purchased.
Vacant property insurance is pretty much a pain, a burden, and a huge expense but those are all due to the high risk of owning an unattended property. The sheer cost of these policies are a great indicator of the real dangers presented in these situations and the high cost associated with unforeseen incidents occurring. For this reason, the cost of insurance shouldn’t drive you away from the prospect of purchasing it, but should instead serve as a reminder that your investment is at stake.
