During the previous national lockdowns UK insurers adopted a fairly unanimous stance & suspended many of the usual policy terms & conditions to reflect the difficulty in complying with these due to movement restriction imposed by the government. Unfortunately this unanimity hasn’t been continued during the latest lockdown. Whilst the likes of Advent have agreed to suspend periodic inspections of unoccupied properties if policyholders are unable to travel due to the lockdown, others such as NIG have advised that they are no longer going to provide blanket extensions to unoccupancy terms. Most Property insurance policies, both Commercial & Personal, will contain an unoccupancy clause which restricts or otherwise modifies the cover provided in the event that the property is continuously unoccupied for a period of time. This period varies but is typically somewhere between 14 & 45 days. As the latest lockdown is likely to continue until at least the middle of next month, if your business premises are currently unoccupied due to being classed as non-essential or your employees are working from home, you will need to check the unoccupancy period in your policy wording &, if necessary, notify your broker or insurer that the property is empty. This is vital as, as well as many covers being withdrawn or restricted during periods of extended unoccupancy, insurers may refuse cover completely if you have not complied with the policy conditions or notified them of the closure. Please contact us if you have any questions.