If your mum's house was standing empty when it was broken into, whether the insurance pays depends almost entirely on two things: how long the property had been unoccupied, and whether the insurer had been told it was empty. A theft claim on an empty house is one of the most commonly refused claims there is, and the refusal almost always turns on a clause most people have never read — the unoccupancy condition buried in the policy.
Here is the uncomfortable part. The premiums may have been paid up to date. The policy may look, on its face, perfectly valid. And the insurer can still decline the claim, because a standard home policy quietly cuts back cover once a house has stood empty for a set number of weeks. Theft is usually the first thing to go. The death that emptied the house is exactly what set the clock running.
This catches executors during probate more than at any other time, because a house routinely sits empty for months while a grant is obtained and the property is cleared or sold. That is the window in which it is least protected and, sadly, most watched from outside.
At a glance
- A standard home policy usually restricts cover once a property has been unoccupied continuously for a set period, commonly somewhere between 30 and 60 days.
- Theft, malicious damage and escape of water are typically the first perils withdrawn, so a break-in on an empty house is the classic refused claim.
- You must tell the insurer the property is now empty. Saying nothing can put the whole policy at risk, not just one claim.
- Specialist unoccupied property cover exists and is usually the right fix while the estate is being administered.
- An executor who leaves an estate's house uninsured, or fails to disclose that it is empty, can be answerable to the beneficiaries for the loss.
The short answer: it turns on how long it had been empty
Home insurance is priced on the assumption that someone is living in the house. People notice a smashed window, hear a dripping pipe, put the bins out, turn lights on. An empty house has none of that, so it is a materially different risk — and insurers deal with it by making the cover conditional on occupancy.
Almost every buildings and contents policy contains a clause that says full cover applies only while the property is occupied, and that once it has been unoccupied for a continuous period, cover is reduced. The exact period varies. Some policies use 30 days, some 45, some 60. After that point the policy typically drops back to a much narrower list of perils, and a claim for anything outside that list is declined.
So the first thing to establish is factual, not legal: on the date of the break-in, how many continuous days had the house been empty, and what does the schedule say the limit is? If the property was inside the occupied period, an ordinary theft claim should be treated like any other. If it had tipped over the limit, you are into the unoccupancy exclusion, and that is a much harder conversation.
Why an empty house is a different risk to the insurer
It is worth understanding the insurer's logic, because it explains which claims survive and which do not. An empty house is more likely to be targeted by burglars, who can watch a property and take their time. A leak from a failed washing machine hose or a burst pipe in a cold snap can run for weeks before anyone finds it, turning a small escape of water into a ruined ceiling and floor. Nobody clears the post from the mat, so it advertises that the house is empty. Small maintenance problems become large ones.
An empty house is also expensive to simply hold. Alongside the insurance question there is council tax to deal with, which does not stop because nobody lives there — we cover that separately in our guide to council tax on a late parent's empty house during probate. Standing charges on the utilities keep running too, which is why putting the energy account into your name after a death is one of the early jobs. The point is that an empty estate property is a running cost and a running risk at the same time, and the risk is the part that can turn into a five-figure loss overnight.
Grants of probate routinely take months rather than weeks, and the property is exposed for that entire period. Executors often assume the house is fine because it is locked and the policy is paid, and only discover the gap when a claim is refused.
Source: HM Courts and Tribunals Service, Family Court and probate management information, which publishes how long grants of representation are taking to issue.
The unoccupancy clause, and the 30-to-60-day trap
The clause that does the damage is usually headed something like "unoccupied property" or "unoccupancy condition". Two words in it matter. Unoccupied generally means no one is living there, even if the furniture is still in place — so a fully furnished family home with nobody sleeping in it counts as unoccupied. Consecutive or continuous matters too: the clock is about an unbroken run of empty days, and a brief visit to collect post may or may not reset it, depending on the wording.
The trap is how fast that period passes after a death. Between registering the death, arranging the funeral, waiting for the grant and starting to clear the house, 30 or 60 days can be gone before anyone has thought about the insurance at all. The house crosses the line silently, and the policy narrows without a single letter arriving to warn you.
The table below shows the shape of what typically happens. It is a general pattern, not any one insurer's wording, so the only reliable version is the schedule and policy booklet for the actual policy.
| Peril | While occupied | Once unoccupied beyond the policy's limit |
|---|---|---|
| Fire and lightning | Covered | Usually still covered |
| Theft and attempted theft | Covered | Commonly excluded |
| Malicious damage and vandalism | Covered | Commonly excluded |
| Escape of water (burst pipes, leaks) | Covered | Commonly excluded |
| Accidental damage | Often an optional extra | Commonly excluded |
Theft and escape of water are the first cover to go
Theft is the exclusion that bites in a break-in, and it is worded broadly. It usually covers not just what was taken but damage caused forcing entry — a jemmied door, a broken window, a kicked-in back gate. If the theft peril has fallen away because the house was unoccupied, all of that damage can fall away with it, and the estate is left paying to make the house secure again out of its own funds.
Escape of water is the quieter twin, and over a long probate it does more financial damage than burglary. A heating system left off through a hard winter, or a slow leak under a sink, can flood a house that nobody visits for a fortnight. Because escape of water is also commonly withdrawn on an unoccupied property, that loss can be uninsured too. This is why insurers that do offer unoccupied cover attach conditions about the heating and the water supply, which we come to below.
Telling the insurer, and arranging unoccupied cover
The single most important thing an executor can do is tell the insurer, in writing, that the policyholder has died and the house is now empty. This is not optional politeness. A change like a death and an empty property is a change in the risk, and most policies require you to report it. If you do not, the insurer can argue that the whole policy is compromised, not merely that one claim falls under an exclusion — a far worse position than being caught by the exclusion alone.
When you tell them, one of a few things happens. Some insurers allow a short grace period after a death before the unoccupancy terms bite, and will keep broader cover running for a few weeks while you get organised. Some will offer to continue on restricted terms. Some will decline to cover an unoccupied estate property at all, and point you towards a specialist. In every case, get the position confirmed in writing and diarise any date on which the cover changes.
Specialist unoccupied property insurance is a normal product, usually sold on short, renewable terms to cover exactly this gap. It comes with conditions the insurer will expect you to keep, and the claim can hinge on them:
- Regular documented inspections of the property, often weekly or fortnightly.
- Keeping the heating on at a low setting through winter, or having the water system drained down.
- Turning off the water at the stopcock where the system is not in use.
- Clearing post from the mat so the house does not look empty, and keeping the garden reasonably tidy.
- Making sure locks and any alarm are working and used.
Sorting the insurance sits alongside the other early sweep of executor tasks — establishing what the estate actually contains. That includes finding out whether there was a life policy and tracking down bank accounts nobody knew about, both of which can reveal money the estate needs to hold and protect the house while probate grinds on.
What the executor is personally exposed to
This is the part that turns an unlucky break-in into a personal worry. An executor, or an administrator where there was no will, has a legal duty to collect in and preserve the assets of the estate. A house is one of the largest of those assets, and preserving it plainly includes keeping it insured and telling the insurer it is empty.
If a house is left uninsured, or the insurer is not told it has become unoccupied, and a loss then follows that a proper policy would have covered, a beneficiary can argue the executor caused that loss through their own default. In principle the executor can be asked to make the shortfall good personally. This is not a remote, theoretical risk that only lands on careless people — it is precisely why arranging correct cover on an estate property is treated as a core, early executor task rather than an afterthought. The deeper question of exactly who carries the loss when an estate house is broken into is one we set out on its own in who carries the loss when an empty probate house is broken into.
There is a wider point here that sits behind a lot of these problems. An estate house is exposed for months largely because the estate is illiquid: the money is locked up in the property and in accounts that cannot be touched until the grant arrives, so there is nothing ready to pay for security, insurance and holding costs. One of the reasons people arrange life cover is to leave their family a sum that does not wait for probate, which can fund exactly this kind of holding period. If that is a gap you have spotted in your own affairs while dealing with someone else's, you can get life insurance quotes and have an FCA-authorised broker price it against your own circumstances.
If the claim has already been refused
A refusal is not always the end. Ask the insurer to put the reason in writing and to identify the exact clause and the dates it is relying on. Then check three things against the actual policy. Had the property genuinely passed the unoccupancy limit on the date of the break-in? Did the policy actually require you to notify the change, and were you given a fair chance to do so? And would the insurer have simply carried on, perhaps on adjusted terms, had it been told?
If you think the refusal is unfair, use the insurer's formal complaints process first, then take it to the Financial Ombudsman Service, which is free and reviews disputed claims on the basis of the wording and what is fair. The Ombudsman has upheld some unoccupancy refusals and overturned others, and the difference usually comes down to how clearly the condition was set out and whether the insurer behaved reasonably. For free, independent help understanding your position as an executor, Citizens Advice can point you in the right direction, and the fuller picture of these tasks is gathered in our guide to bereavement admin, assets and contracts.
Scotland and Northern Ireland
The insurance position is the same across the United Kingdom, because insurance contracts and the firms that write them are regulated on a UK-wide basis. An unoccupancy clause works the same way whether the house is in Aberdeen, Belfast or Bristol, and the duty to disclose that a property has become empty does not change at the border.
What differs is the machinery of who has authority to act. In Scotland the personal representative is the executor, whose authority comes from confirmation granted by the sheriff court rather than a grant of probate, but the underlying duty to ingather and preserve the estate — including keeping the house insured — is the same in substance. In Northern Ireland a grant is obtained through the Northern Ireland Courts and Tribunals Service. In every jurisdiction the message is identical: the person with authority over the estate is the person on the hook for the empty house, so insure it properly and tell the insurer it is empty.
Frequently asked questions
Will home insurance pay for a theft at a house left empty after a death?
Not always. Most standard home policies restrict cover once a property has stood empty for a continuous period, commonly somewhere between 30 and 60 days, and theft and escape of water are usually the first perils withdrawn. If the break-in happened after that point, the insurer can decline the claim even though premiums were still being paid. If it happened while the house was still within the occupied period, it should be treated like any other theft claim.
Do I have to tell the insurer that the house is now empty?
Yes. Insurers treat a death and the resulting empty property as a change in the risk that must be reported. Telling them promptly lets them restrict, extend or replace the cover in writing, and often allows a short grace period before the unoccupancy terms apply. Saying nothing risks the whole policy being treated as compromised, rather than just one claim being reduced, so notify them in writing and keep the reply.
Can an executor be held personally responsible if a claim fails?
They can. Executors owe a duty to preserve the assets of the estate, and a house is one of the largest of those assets. If it is left uninsured, or the insurer is not told it is empty, and a loss follows that proper cover would have met, beneficiaries can argue the executor caused the loss and ask them to make it good. That is why arranging correct unoccupied property cover early is treated as a core executor task rather than something to get to later.