Risk snapshot
An owner-occupied commercial warehouse, vacant of active tenants, being used as occasional car parking by the owner’s other business. Building sum insured below the $1 million mark. Older ex-industrial construction.
Situation
The property sat between tenancies following a vacancy trigger. The combination of vacant status and the age of the building is the profile mainstream property insurers are set up to decline on sight. The site was held under a commercial financing structure with an interested party noted on title, so cover had to be in place quickly to satisfy the finance condition and let the owner begin the re-tenanting process without running the site uninsured in the meantime.
Construction and exposure
Older ex-light-industrial build. Brick walls, concrete floor, corrugated iron roof. Fire protection limited to extinguishers and non-monitored smoke alarms. Security via roller door, deadlocks, and window locks. No active tenant meant no monitored alarm chain and no rent-supported business interruption basis. Building photographs indicated graffiti that required remediation as a pre-bind condition.
Cover placed
Specialist ISR wording via an underwriting agency’s vacant-property facility. Six-month policy term, with the intention to re-write onto a mainstream wording once the site was re-tenanted. Policy conditional on graffiti removal within seven days of inception.
Market journey
Eight insurers were approached. Seven declined on vacancy or occupation. Placement went to a specialist underwriter writing specifically into the vacant-property space at SME sum insured levels.
Outcome
Premium around $3,500 for a six-month term, with a standard commercial excess. Pre-bind conditions satisfied by the client within the required window.
Why it mattered
Vacant-property claims are what insurers spend their entire risk-selection effort trying to avoid. Water ingress from an unnoticed burst, arson, malicious damage, squatters, and the gradual deterioration that compounds when no-one is on site to notice. No business pack market will bind this exposure. We worked the ISR market and the specialist underwriting agencies because this type of risk sits in their speciality. They understand vacant-property triggers, and their in-house teams can often handle the liability alongside the property on a single placement. That is what drove the market selection on this one.