Recommendations for insuring a vacant property?

[AmericanPastoral]

My mum's house is vacant, the insurance has lapsed and a friend told me you have to notify the insurance company if it is vacant. Has anyone ever done this? Are there any companies which are cheaper than others?

Many thanks.

We have insured empty houses, e.g. in between a relative going into a care home and the house being sold.

It will be more expensive and you may have to guarantee that the water will be turned off, or that someone will be staying overnight at least once a month, or both.

I recently had the same issue as my father died so his house is currently empty while awaiting probate. I insured with a company called Nova after recommendation from a helpful poster on here. It is more expensive than usual and there are provisos such as turning water and gas off and visiting at least every 30 days. You can Google for specialist insurers as you may find the mainstream or current insurers won’t insure unoccupied houses.

I seem to remember we used Towergate.(I think that was the name, they are brokers I found online) I knew, when my father died, that the house would immediately become uninsured. It was unoccupied but I had no problem insuring it. The cost was rather high though, about £1300 if I remember correctly. We either had to drain down all the systems, in case of leaks, or else keep it heated from October to April. We opted to do the latter. You also have to visit the house regularly.
Actually, we discovered after my father's death that he had neglected to renew his insurance, so it hadn't been covered for about 6 months, what with that and his misoperation of the burglar alarm, we were very lucky nothing happened!

Hi - another recommendation for Nova. They're helpful and straightforward on the phone explaining the options.

We’ve used Intasure in the past when we weren’t living in a property.

We used Discount Insurance (.co. uk) for our empty property (fortunately only for a couple of months, it got sold soon after). It cost about 37-38/month for a two-bed maisonette in Scotland, and it was pretty straightforward dealing with them.

Many thanks for your responses