Home Insurance headache!!

Hi there
i wouldn't have though this was such an unusual request, but no, the laws of these stupid companies say that it is!!!

Girlfriend and I are off travlleing for 8 months pretty soon and im pretty frustrated here about insurance whilst not being in the country.

We have a house and car and are basiacally putting the car in a garage and shutting down the house (regular check-ups from family etc making sure all is OK). Eg. we want to disconnect gas/water/elec etc

I've already discovered that a car is uninsurable if its not being used (hmmm wheres the sense in that) but thats not so much of a problem. I've now discovered that a home is uninsurable if not being lived in (really, who makes these rules)

Other people must have been in this situation before, what did you do?

Help please as i am going mad here with the idiots on the other end of the phone!

Mark

There have been members with the same problem, though not recently. I'm sure someone else will have an answer too, but some have resorted to having a relative reside in the home during their absence to get around the insurance problem. It allowed the house to remain insured and cared for while they traveled. I know of two members who ultimately rented their homes to outsiders while a family member collected the rent and made weekly visits to the property for inspection purposes. In that scenario, the inspections were part of the lease agreement. I also know that the member's lawyer recommended that the family member in charge of the property be given temporary power of attorney in case any legal disputes arose while the owner was traveling.

I hope that helps a bit, or at least, sheds light on some alternatives...

Sorry - forgot to mention that the scenarios I spoke of above where all members residing in the UK.

[ Edit: Edited on Feb 7, 2007, at 11:02 AM by Isadora ]

Hi Mark

We too had the same problem. The best we could find for our home was very basic insurance that covered for floods and the like, but not for burglary or anything being broken by visiting friends and family. We didn't want to rent out our home to strangers so we invited friends to use it as a holiday home. This seemed to work well for all concerned.

We didn't disconnect any services (apart from the telephone!), but they were turned off between visits.

We didn't have such a problem with the car, as it was old and on it's last legs, we just shut it in our garage. I wouldn't have wanted to waste money on insuring it. Maybe you could sell your car before you go?

I suppose we took a risk and it did play on my mind occasionally, but fortunately we had no problems. We did move some valuables/irreplaceable items to our parents' houses, which took away some worry.

Hope this helps
Nic

hi

thanks for the reply's, sorry not had access to the site for a few days.

nicnst: i think we are going to do just what you did. Continue to insure the house and keep all utilities connected, but switched off at the main point. The phone line will be disconnected though.

The car is a good car and we have had it since new (only 4 years), so we would like to keep hold of that. My parents have offered to use the car actually. So it will at least get a run and not seize up in the garage! MOT and tax taken care of too so thats good ;-)

Its a big expense to keep paying these bills but like you we didn't want to rent the house. Its an old terrace so would have cost a great deal to get up to renting standards any how.

I suppose we can only do what we can do and cover all angles, pay what we need to and keep our fingers crossed!

many thanks!
Mark