Vacancy conditions in your policy

The honest answer is that it depends on the season, the property and — critically — what your own insurance policy says. There is no universal standard, and anyone who gives you a single number without asking about your policy is guessing.

That said, the practical logic is straightforward. The damage from most vacant-property failures is proportional to how long they run undetected, so the visit interval is effectively a cap on your worst-case outcome. A leak found after three days and the same leak found after three weeks are very different events.

In practice, weekly is the most common cadence for an Alberta property during the heating season, with owners increasing to twice weekly or every 72 hours during extreme cold. Through summer, weekly or biweekly is common. Properties with known risk factors — poly-B plumbing, an aging hot water tank, a history of basement water, or no water shut-off — warrant more frequent visits than a newer, lower-risk property.

The number that actually matters is the one in your policy. Many policies contain a required check interval during extended absences, and some specify who must perform it. Call your insurer or broker and ask directly before you leave.

In insurance terms these are usually two different things, and the distinction matters because policies commonly treat them differently.

Unoccupied generally means nobody is currently living in the property, but the situation is temporary and the occupants intend to return — belongings are still there, furniture is in place, and the home is still a home. A snowbird's house through the winter is the standard example.

Vacant generally means the occupants have moved out and do not intend to return, and the property is largely empty of belongings. A house whose owners have relocated before it sold, a property held in an estate after contents have been removed, or a rental between tenants would typically fall here.

Why it matters: many policies restrict or exclude specific perils once a property is considered vacant beyond a defined period — often around thirty days, though this varies considerably between insurers. Water damage, vandalism, theft and glass breakage are frequently the first coverages affected.

These are general descriptions, not definitions of your policy. Insurers word this differently and the wording in your own policy is the only version that governs. Read it, and ask your broker which category your situation falls into.

Physically, a house can sit empty indefinitely if it is maintained — heated, water managed, monitored and looked after. The limiting factors are not structural, they are practical: insurance, deterioration and the accumulation of unnoticed problems.

The insurance constraint is usually the binding one. Many policies begin restricting coverage after roughly thirty days of vacancy, though the threshold and the consequences vary. Beyond that point some owners need a specialised vacant-property policy, which is a different product with different terms and typically a higher premium.

The deterioration constraint is gradual and cumulative. Traps dry within weeks. Pests establish over a season. Moisture problems compound. Systems that sit idle behave unpredictably when restarted. None of these are dramatic on their own; together over a year they produce a property that needs significant work.

The real answer is that a house can sit empty for a long time safely, provided somebody is attending to it. It is unattended vacancy rather than vacancy itself that causes the damage.

We cannot tell you, and neither can any home-watch company — that answer lives in your specific policy, and it varies substantially between insurers and between products.

What we can tell you is what to ask. Call your insurer or broker before you leave and ask these questions specifically: What does my policy define as vacant, and as unoccupied? At what point do restrictions begin? Which coverages are affected? Are there conditions I must meet during an extended absence — maintaining heat at a specified temperature, shutting off and draining the water supply, or having the property checked at a stated interval? If checks are required, how often, and does the policy specify who may perform them? Do I need to notify you that the property will be empty?

Get the answers in writing. An email from your broker confirming the requirements is worth having if a claim is ever made.

A common pattern in Canadian policies is a requirement to either maintain heat during the heating season or shut off and drain the water supply, sometimes paired with a required check interval. But that is a pattern, not your policy. Ask.

VacantHomes.ca provides documented property visits that give you an organised record of monitoring. We do not represent that any service, or any visit frequency, satisfies any policy condition — that determination is between you and your insurer.

That is entirely for your insurer to determine, and any company that tells you otherwise is making a promise it has no standing to make.

Some policies require checks by a "competent person" at a defined interval and do not specify further. Others are more prescriptive. Some require no checks at all provided water is shut off and drained. Whether a particular service meets a particular condition is a question for the insurer who wrote the policy.

What a documented service does provide is evidence: dated, photographed records of when the property was attended and what was observed. If your policy requires checks, having a record that they happened is materially better than asserting it afterwards.

Before you rely on any arrangement, confirm the requirement with your broker and tell them what you have arranged. If it matters to your coverage, get their confirmation in writing.

Quite possibly, and it costs nothing to ask.

Many policies require notification if a property will be unoccupied beyond a defined period. Some require it in writing. Failing to notify where notification is required can affect how a claim is handled.

For short absences — a two-week holiday — notification is generally not required under most policies. For extended absences of a month or more, and particularly for a full snowbird season, it is worth a call regardless of whether you think it is required.

The conversation is short. Tell them how long you will be away, when, whether anyone will be attending the property, and what arrangements you have made for heat and water. Ask them to confirm in writing what conditions apply.

For an extended absence in an Alberta winter, shutting off the water is the single most effective step available to you. It removes the mechanism for the most expensive thing that happens to vacant homes.

The reasoning is simple. A supply line that fails while the water is on runs continuously at full pressure until someone closes a valve. The same failure with the water off produces nothing. Shutting off does not prevent pipes from freezing, but it dramatically limits what happens when one does.

For it to work properly, shutting off is not enough on its own — the system should also be drained. Open the lowest fixtures to relieve pressure and let standing water out. Water left in the lines can still freeze and split a pipe; you simply avoid the continuous flow afterwards.

Some caveats. If your property has a fire sprinkler system, do not shut off the supply — that system needs to remain charged. If the property has a boiler or in-floor heating, the heating loop is separate from the domestic supply and needs different handling. If the shut-off valve is old, seized or leaking, force it and you may create the problem you were preventing; have a plumber deal with it first.

Also check your policy. Some insurers require water to be shut off and drained during extended absences in the heating season, and some accept maintained heat as an alternative. Which one applies to you is worth knowing before you decide.

Only if the water supply has been shut off and the system properly drained, and even then it is a bigger step than most owners realise.

With water fully drained there is no plumbing left to freeze, so the freeze argument for heating disappears. But an unheated building through an Alberta winter has other consequences: condensation and moisture cycling in the structure, stress on finishes, adhesives and materials from repeated freeze-thaw, and potential problems with anything left in the property.

A property with a boiler or in-floor heating cannot simply be shut down — those systems have their own fluid that needs handling, and shutting down without proper procedure risks damage to the system itself.

Your insurer likely has a view on this. Many policies require either maintained heat or a drained system during heating-season absences, and some are specific about which. Confirm before deciding.

For most owners leaving for a season, maintaining a minimum temperature is the simpler and safer choice. Full shutdown makes sense for genuinely long-term vacancy — an estate property with an uncertain timeline, or a property awaiting redevelopment — and is worth setting up properly with a plumber rather than improvising.

An empty house that visibly looks empty does. An empty house that does not look empty is a much less interesting proposition.

Properties are generally selected on visible cues rather than any knowledge of who lives there: accumulated mail and flyers, an uncleared walk after a snowfall, unchanging or absent lighting, no vehicle, blinds in the same position for weeks, and untended grass. Every one of those is removable.

The practical countermeasures are unglamorous and effective. Mail collected and flyers cleared. Walks cleared within a day of snowfall. Grass cut. Bins out and back on collection day. Lighting on varied timers rather than one lamp on a fixed cycle. Blinds moved. Visits at irregular times rather than the same hour every week.

One more thing worth checking: many policies restrict or exclude vandalism and theft coverage once a property has been vacant beyond a defined period. If that applies to your situation, the loss may not respond the way you assume. Ask your broker.

Yes, with preparation. Houses sit empty for three months constantly and most are completely fine. The duration itself is not the problem — whether anybody prepared the property and whether anybody is looking at it are.

Three months does cross a real threshold though. Most Canadian policies that restrict coverage during vacancy do so well before that point, commonly around thirty days, so you are past it in every policy that has a threshold. That makes the insurance call the first thing to do rather than the last.

Physically, three months is long enough for traps to dry out, pests to establish, and any slow leak to have been running the entire time. All of it is preventable with a visit schedule and an afternoon of preparation.