ask for the definition of vacant, my brother spent 1/2 the time in his old home in order to not call it "vacant" that required leaving some furniture there, plus utilities,and travel back and forth to that home and a lot of time on his part but somehow that was still cheaper than the alternative insurance i would just cough up the extra insurance if it was me.....

After FIL passed, and the house was vacated, we had to change the insurance over until we sell.

We went through an insurance broker and got a decent rate. Also, we have to have a monitored home alarm.

It's a pain, but will be worth it all when it sells.

This has been the case for years. Sorry this is a surprise for you.

It was a surprise because my agent never told me this information. He knew our house was vacant because we had moved and got home insurance through him on the new house. I only happened to call the insurance company directly because a friend had mentioned it to me and I called to verify. When I asked my agent he said I shouldn't have said anything to the insurance company and that they would have been none the wiser.

A vacant house poses a multitude of possible losses. Depending on where your at and the time of year. Because the house isn't lived in and checked daily small things lead into big things. A leaky roof that sits a week will suffer much less damage than one that has been leaking for 3-6 months. Same applies to rental properties. Yes they may be rented and lived in by tenants but they don't have the same interest in the property as the owner does. It's all about risk and the potential for loss.

We received notification from State Farm that our HO policy would not be renewed upon its one year of vacancy anniversary. Fortunately it sold before that date.

When I bought insurance for our home we had purchased, my agent alerted me to the potential change in policy for the house we had vacated. We had bought and moved spontaneously, had not been looking or planning. I took the next 6 months updating our former house (just a few blocks away) to sell & while waiting for prime spring listing time - a smaller home, I wanted it to be move in ready and be the 'new kid on the block', a fresh attractive listing. My agent worked with me, keeping the now empty house under the radar, and called a few times over the months, asking my status with the remodeling/repairs. When I listed and had offers, she knew before I'd told her so she had been keeping track. The month the sale was finalizing, I received a letter that my policy would not be renewed as written the following month, that I would need to find other coverage. We had moved in November, listed and sold early May.

When I asked my agent he said I shouldn't have said anything to the insurance company and that they would have been none the wiser.

I think if you intentionally lie to your insurance company about a vacant house and you need to make a claim and they could show that you basically lied, then they may be able to deny the claim.

But if the 'error' was done by your insurance agent (ie. he should have realized it was vacant and advised you that you needed to change your policy) and you needed to make a claim, they'd probably have to honour it. It was their employee's fault.

Some agents may unintentionally do this or maybe even be willing to take whatever slap on the wrist might happen if their 'error' is noticed in order to keep their clients happy. So that's probably why he told you that you shouldn't have mentioned it. Now that you have, he can't claim that it was an oversight on his part so you'll have to change your policy.

But that's just my opinion. That may not be the case and maybe your agent made a huge blunder that could have cost you if something had occurred.

Insurance companies like to make people think that claims can be denied for the tiniest infractions and they will deny legitimate claims all the time because if even a fraction of the claimants give up and go away, that's money in their pocket. If you fight the denial then the worse case is that they have to pay it. Why would they jump to that position right away? They aren't your friend.

We had the SO's son living there as a house sitter.

He was almost camping out, but it kept the insurance rates down.

This is an independent agent that shops for the best rates for me. However, this was the last straw. I've had issues with him in the past and think he's incompetent.

I shouldn't have said anything to the insurance company and that they would have been none the wiser.

Works fine unless you have to make a claim!

When repossessing homes or providing insurance where the mortgagor (homeowner) has defaulted, we have to typically pay three times the homeowner rate. In one case, when we provided insurance after the homeowner defaulted, the homeowner renewed his own policy but still had to pay $1,200 for the one or two day coverage the replacement insurer provided, plus our fee.

My insurance agent informed us of that fact when we were selling and not living in the house being sold. He basically told us he would ignore this but if anything happened to say we were living in the house. Wasn't the right thing to do, but we could not afford to pay more for insurance at the time.

We have all our insurances with Travellers, this company went way beyond the norm to accommodate all our needs, previous home, empty previous home especially when the buyers deal fell through soon as we had home packed for the move. All insurance companies are not the same. I dealt and deal directly with Travellers.