In every autumn thousands of the properties on the Isle of Wight have their final booking of the season, are thoroughly cleaned and then locked up until spring; and each winter a certain number of those properties are reopened in March only to discover a ceiling on the floor.
Burst pipes are in fact the most costly incident that can befall an unoccupied house, and the figures are more severe than most owners realise. In November 2023, Zurich UK stated that the average cost of repairing damage caused by burst pipes had increased from £8,663 in 2021 to £12,791 in 2022 — an increase of almost £4,000 within one year. The Association of British Insurers noted that the total amount paid out on water escape claims reached £987 million in 2022, a 15% rise on the previous year, or about £2.7 million each day.
For a owner of an island holiday rental, the bill comes with an extra complication: getting someone to go to the property in order to stop it.
Why an empty property is a bigger problem on the Isle of Wight
In short, there is no bridge or tunnel to the Isle of Wight; all emergency plumbers, loss adjusters and drying contractors are either resident on the island or have to arrange a ferry trip, which means that visits for calls out take longer and are more expensive than for a similar job eight miles away in Portsmouth. A leak that goes unnoticed for two weeks is a very different kind of claim from one that is spotted within an hour.
The fact that the Island’s housing situation makes this worse is that, compared with the rest of the country, a high percentage of properties on the Isle of Wight are second homes and holiday lets — so much so that in February 2024 the Isle of Wight Council obtained the power to charge second homes twice the standard amount of Council Tax, a premium which came into effect on 1 April 2025. It is precisely the types of property that remain unoccupied from November to March.
The outcome is a huge number of houses that are unoccupied and unheated, situated on an island with access to help being provided by a ferry crossing, during the coldest months of the year.
For how long can a property remain unoccupied before the insurance is impacted?
In short, the majority of home and landlord insurance policies impose an unoccupancy limit of 30, 60 or 90 consecutive days, 30 and 60 day limits being the most frequent. There is no legally defined figure; the limit is determined by the terms of the policy. Once this limit has been exceeded, the coverage usually drops off sharply and the risk of water escaping is one of the first to be excluded.
What makes the situation change so that a repair costing £12,000 becomes a personal loss of £12,000 is this: when a property has been unoccupied for a period longer than the limit stated in the policy without notifying the insurer, theft, deliberate damage and water leakage are usually excluded – some policies even restrict coverage to only fire, lightning, explosion and aircraft damage – and in more serious cases the policy can be considered as suspended for that entire period.
A holiday let which takes its final booking in late October and its first one in early April has remained unoccupied for about 150 days, and owners who have never read the clause concerning unoccupancy in their policy should do so before the clocks go back.
Insurers generally keep the insurance in force if they are given advance notice, the arrangement sometimes including conditions and sometimes requiring an extra premium. The error is not in leaving the property unoccupied. The error is not in telling anyone.
Should an empty property be heated or be the liquid drained from it?
In short, during the winter months insurers generally insist on one or the other — either keeping the central heating on at a low and constant temperature or draining the entire water system. If neither of these is done then the claims will be rejected. As to which of the two is the better option it depends on how frequently the property will be visited and how long it will remain unoccupied.
| Leave the heating on | Drain the system down | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Properties visited regularly, or let occasionally over winter | Properties genuinely closed until spring |
| Typical requirement | A constant low temperature, commonly specified as somewhere between 12°C and 15°C — check the exact figure in the policy | Water off at the stopcock, system drained, taps left open |
| Running cost | Ongoing heating bill all winter | Effectively nil |
| Risk | Fails completely if the boiler fails and nobody notices | Fails if the drain-down is incomplete and water is left sitting in a low point |
| Also needed | Loft hatch left ajar so warm air reaches pipework; internal doors open | A competent recommissioning before reletting |
Each of the two routes usually includes an inspection requirement — this being on a weekly, biweekly or monthly basis according to the policy. Owners should make sure they have dated photographs of each visit. These photographs will then serve as the proof that the conditions have been fulfilled if a claim is ever made.
For those who live on the mainland, having a paid key-holder or a managing agent is no longer a luxury. A property that is unheated and not inspected and which fails to meet the conditions of its policy is not actually insured.
Which pipes freeze first?
In short, it is the pipes located in unheated areas — such as lofts, garages, outbuildings, those underneath suspended floors, and those along the external walls — that freeze. The pipework inside the heated part of the house very seldom freezes. Almost all the bursts that occur in an empty property can be attributed to a pipe which had not been insulated because it was not possible to see.
When any owner is walking around their property this autumn the order of priority is clear: the cold water tank and its pipework in the loft, the pipe run to any external tap, all the plumbing in a garage or in an unheated annex, and the condensate pipe from a modern boiler, which is a common and easily-overlooked point of failure.
The makeshift solution is inferior and is sufficient for the majority of properties. In cases where the piping is actually being replaced, the material used is important. Copper splits when the water in it freezes and expands; it doesn’t accommodate this expansion at all. That is the reason why plumbers working on lofts, garages and unheated outbuildings are now more likely to specify plastic push fittings — the material has a greater ability to cope with expansion and the joints can be made without the need for a blowtorch, something that makes a difference on an island where a Saturday visit is neither fast nor inexpensive. For property owners who carry out their own maintenance between tenancies, it is also the distinction between a job that requires a professional and one that does not.
Southern Water, the company which provides water to the Island, publishes free advice on how to prepare a property for the winter and on how to prevent pipes from freezing, and the advice is worth reading together with the policy wording rather than in place of it.
The pre-winter checklist
- Read the unoccupancy clause in the insurance policy, and notify the insurer in writing before the limit is passed
- Decide: heat or drain — and if heating, set the thermostat to the temperature the policy specifies and leave it running continuously
- Locate and label the internal stopcock, and make sure the key-holder knows where it is
- Lag every pipe in unheated space — loft, garage, outbuilding, external walls
- Isolate and drain the outside tap
- Leave the loft hatch open and internal doors ajar if the property is being heated
- Arrange inspections at the interval the policy requires, and photograph each visit with the date visible
- Give a trusted key-holder on the Island the alarm code, the stopcock location and a number for a local plumber
What to do if a pipe has already burst
In short, switch off the water at the internal stopcock, turn off the electricity at the consumer unit if the water is in any way close to any wiring or light fittings, take photographs of everything before making any moves, and get in touch with the insurer’s emergency line before sorting out the repairs.
The order is important; if you arrange a repair before notifying the insurer it may complicate the claim, and carrying out any cleaning before taking photographs of the damage will remove the evidence on which the claim is based. After the water supply has been turned off and the property is safe, the insurer’s own network of approved contractors is generally quicker than hiring someone on your own — especially during a cold snap when all the plumbs on the Island are already fully booked.
