Holiday home insurance basics
If you’re lucky enough to own a holiday home, you’ll want to make sure you’ve got the best insurance protection, especially considering you’ll not always be there in person to look after it. Whether you keep it for personal use or decide to rent it out to short term guests – we’ve got you covered.
Standard house insurance requires someone to be living at the home for more than 60 consecutive days. If it’s vacant for longer than this, it’s considered a holiday home. Because a holiday home isn’t your primary residence there are more risks involved, for example; the property may be empty for long periods of time, increasing its chances of break-ins.
What are my obligations?
We expect holiday houses to be empty more often, so our conditions are a little more lenient, but we do require:
- You or your family stay at the holiday house at least once a year
- The house is inspected (inside and outside) by you or a nominated person at least every 60 days
- The home and its grounds are maintained
- Mail is cleared regularly
- Water supply is turned off
- All doors and windows are secured when the home is vacant.
If you can’t meet these conditions, then a standard $5,000 excess will apply to your policy. Alternatively, if it’s fitted with a professional alarm* this will reduce to $1,000 when you claim for a break-in or burglary.
* Systems which include surveillance cameras only do not meet this criteria – the system needs the ability to provide an external alert (audible or direct to a monitoring company)
How do I get holiday home cover?
It’s as simple as selecting holiday home as the property type when you generate your instant quote. Alternatively, if you are changing your current home into a holiday home, all you need to do is change your cover in the property type drop down menu. The monthly costs will automatically update and will take effect as soon as you confirm the change online.
Holiday home or rental insurance?
The main difference between holiday homes and year round short term rentals is how often they are rented out. We have multiple options available depending on how frequently you rent your house out – just select the right option in the dropdown menu and initio’s clever software will do the rest. If you’re not sure which is the best cover for you, get in touch anytime. We’re here to help.
At initio, we offer comprehensive protection for your bach or holiday home, with flexible cover if you also rent to guests. Learn more: https://initio.co.nz/holiday-home-insurance/
This guide is intended to be a quick reference to vacant houses. We recommend reading the full policy wording for the full details of your holiday home coverage.