Moving home insurance: the weeks you hold two houses

Vacant home insurance: what the form stops covering

A house does not have to be damaged to stop being fully covered. It only has to be empty.

Standard forms count consecutive days of vacancy, then withdraw named causes of loss. In the 2000 edition of the widely used special form that period is 60 consecutive days, after which vandalism, malicious mischief and glass breakage fall away; the 1991 edition used 30. A Texas order approving that program in 2002 notes an older state form went further and suspended dwelling coverage entirely. Your form names a number.

A neighboring exclusion is defeated by hand: freezing damage to plumbing, heating, sprinklers or appliances is excluded while a dwelling stands vacant, unoccupied or under construction, unless the owner kept the heat on or drained the water.

Home insurance when moving: the form knows one address

The policy is attached to you and to a building at once. Its form defines the residence premises as the dwelling you live in and which is named on the declarations page. A move breaks each half on its own date: the address becomes a house you are leaving, and the residency element fails the day you stop sleeping there.

Endorse the old policy, or write a new one

Changing an address is not clerical. The insurer is rating a different building, by age, construction, roof and protection class, and its appetite for that building is an underwriting question. Guidance published in 2011 by the association of state insurance regulators says only the insurer can tell you whether an existing policy moves with you.

What the truck is carrying

Personal property coverage follows your things off the premises, under two limits. In the 2000 form wording, property kept at a residence other than the declared one is capped at ten percent of the personal property limit or $1,000, whichever is greater, and that cap lifts for 30 days for a newly acquired principal residence. The second limit is the list of causes: a carton dropped on a driveway is not a covered cause of loss.

The mover’s paperwork is not insurance. Federal rules for interstate moves, amended in 2022, set two levels of the mover’s liability: Full Value Protection, valued at no less than $6.00 per pound of shipment weight, and Released Value, capped at 60 cents per pound per article.

Only the company writing the new address can say whether the old policy carries; one call with both addresses settles which of the two routes is open.

Around moving home insurance

Questions that come up during a move