Update on our Policy Cover for Unoccupied Properties & Sites

To support you and your clients during the lockdown period, in March we extended our policy cover for properties & sites that were unoccupied for up to 90 days. This extension is due to expire on the 21st of June 2020. We want to continue to support you and your clients with getting back to business, so we’re extending our offer for a further period of 45 days to allow time for the necessary steps to be taken to enable your clients to restart their operations. 

We appreciate you may have started to receive queries from your clients on this matter, so we hope this update will help you with responding to these accordingly.

On the 5th of August 2020, the cover extension will expire, and normal policy terms and conditions will apply. 

As you’ll be aware, many of our policies either restrict cover or require specific steps to be taken to protect your clients’ property & sites where it is unoccupied for a period of time, usually 30 or 45 days. So, if your clients’ premises & sites have been closed during lockdown, this period is likely to have been exhausted. 

The policy cover will therefore not allow a further period unoccupied beyond the 5th of August 2020, so you should check their policy cover now and contact them where appropriate to make sure they understand how this will affect their cover and any steps that need to be taken. 

For more information and guidance on how your clients can protect their property whilst it remains unoccupied, please refer to our pandemic planning loss prevention standards.

We do however recognise that the restrictions on businesses are not all changing at the same time. Commercial sectors and countries are moving at variable speeds whereby some businesses could be required by law to be closed to members of the public beyond the 5th of August 2020.

For those of your clients to whom this will apply, you’ll need to contact us before the 5th of August 2020 to agree the basis of cover.

We also appreciate that there may be circumstances where your clients are prevented from, or opt against, reopening their businesses even though restrictions have been lifted. In these cases, you must contact your local underwriter to discuss and agree the appropriate actions to take. 

You must also contact your local underwriter if:

• your clients have not already advised us of changes they have made to their businesses during the lockdown period
• any of your clients have unfortunately had to cease trading
• any of your clients are property owners and their tenants are no longer trading and/or it is known they will not return to the premises.