What your policy stops paying for after thirty days
Most standard home insurance restricts or withdraws cover once a property has stood unoccupied for a set period, commonly around thirty days, sometimes forty-five or sixty. Specialist unoccupied-property cover fills the gap, and almost always attaches an inspection condition to it.
The condition is not the visit, it is the record
Insurers are not really buying an inspection. They are buying evidence that one happened. A condition of this kind usually asks for a written log recording the date, the time, who attended, what was checked and what was found. Where an inspection is missed, or made but not documented, an insurer has grounds to reduce or reject a claim — not because the damage was your fault, but because the condition was not met.
That is why every attendance we make produces a sequential, numbered record with photographs. Sequential matters: a gap in a numbered series is visible, where a folder of undated photographs is not.
This page describes how unoccupied-property conditions commonly work in the UK market. It is a general description, not advice on your policy, and wordings vary a great deal between insurers. Send us your unoccupancy clause and we will tell you plainly what interval it asks for and whether our records would satisfy it. If in doubt, ask your broker.