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Press Release February 28, 2009

HOUSESITTING # 1 CAUSE OF HOMEOWNER' CONFUSION

Problems with letting a friend, or even a relative, live in your house, housesitting, while you are away.

VacantHomeInsuranceNow, the leading specialty company providing insurance to empty and unoccupied homes and buildings worldwide, has found that the number one cause of confusion surrounding homeowners' insurance policies concerns "house sitting" while the family is away. Every year, hundreds of thousands of people leave their home for over 3 months, and ask a friend, relative, or "the neighbor's kid" to live in the house while the owners are gone.

"I can assure you that the homeowner that lets the neighbors college kid live in the house is usually taking a much bigger risk than a rug destroyed by a party," says Matthew McKinley the president of VacantHomeInsuranceNow.com Matthew goes on to explain that most homeowners do not realize that in most of these situations a special type of homeowners insurance policy needs to be taken out on the property called a landlord policy. These policies are also called landlord - tenant policies, and tenant - boarder policies.

Most people think these policies are reserved for "actual landlords" operating for-profit businesses with tenants. This is not the case. If the owner (and the immediate family) are away for a certain period of time (3 months or more in some cases) and someone not part of the immediate family is living in the house, a tenant or boarder insurance policy needs to be put on the home or the home may be exposed to catastrophic risk.

With many insurers in many States, this is true even if you have a family member living in the house, like a cousin, but there are differences here between insurers in various states.

The point is, if the home is not being occupied by any members of the immediate family, homeowners are strongly advised to contact their agent and / or insurance company to see if the current homeowners' insurance policy is adequate, and to uncover potential problems. In most cases where the family will be away for over 90 days, a tenant / boarder policy will most likely be required or coverage on the home can be lost.

VacantHomeInsuranceNow.com is a leading provider of vacant property insurance -- insurance for homes that become vacant or unoccupied in the United States and in over 50 countries. VacantHomeInsuranceNow supports its growing portfolio of products with powerful technology and a global multilingual call center that operates 24 hours a day. The company is headquartered in Malvern, Pennsylvania. For additional information on vacant condo insurance or any other type of vacant property insurance, please call 610-363-9271.

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