What are your experiences with house insurance in regard to house sitters when you are away? When we checked with our insurer, it turned out that we had to ask permission for a specific endorsement to our policy in order to maintain cover on the occasions we were away and other people, found through a “platform”, were occupying our house. The underwriters were initially hung up about the difference between friends (no problem), professional (i.e. paid) house sitters, and house sitters/occupants not being paid – but found online.
With our current insurer (John Lewis Home Insurance), we need to renew the endorsement each time we go away. There’s no extra charge, but it’s a bit tedious doing the comms – and, of course, there’s always the risk that they will tell us that the underwriters refuse – which would effectively mean that we were uninsured.
Has anyone had similar experiences, and can anyone recommend a UK house insurer which is more comfortable with the concept of house sitters, whether paid or not?
Interesting, I know in Australia if your house is not occupied for a certain amount of time you can have problems with your insurance. I always think it’s an advantage having the home occupied, deters burglars, quicker detection if leaks or storm damage etc. Seems it’s the fact we “volunteer” to do this for you.
I’m not a home owner but a sitter and not once has a home owner brought up their home insurance. As has been said, most insurance companies won’t cover you if something happens and the house has been unoccupied for 30 or, in some cases, 60 days. Your sitters are ‘friends’ staying in the house
My first ever sit was 5 weeks the home owner was with Aviva who I worked for at the time. The Insurance wanted my full name and address to provide cover but I don’t think a cost was involved. I do think most owners probably don’t bother to tell the insurance that a stranger is staying in their house. It is correct that most policies do not allow your home to be empty for more than 30 days otherwise it is classed as uninsured if something goes wrong. This of course applies to sitters as well although there may be a policy that allows more flexibility for travelling
Unfortunately, it seems that the our insurer doesn’t consider someone who comes to the house to sit as a friend, and we’ve been through it in detail with them. We have to feel confident that when we leave the house we’re covered, particularly for major incidents / public liability. It may be that some HO think they are fully covered, when in fact they are not - it’s only when things happen that we tend to find out the detail of such things! For us, it’s like travelling with a good travel insurance. And the steps the HO has taken to ensure they are covered are not something that the sitter would necessarily be aware of.