Part of our complete guide to home insurance in Portugal for property owners. For a free comparison across Zurich, Allianz, Hiscox and Liberty Mutual, request a quote in 24 hours.
There is a clause in almost every Portuguese home policy that most owners have never read and that decides, for a large share of expat-owned property, whether the policy is worth anything at all. It concerns what happens when nobody is living in the house.
Nothing announces it. There is no letter, no reminder, no change of premium. The property simply passes a stated number of consecutive days without being occupied, and the cover quietly changes shape.
What the clause says
The wording varies by insurer, but the architecture is consistent. The policy defines a property as unoccupied — desabitada or não habitada permanentemente — after a stated period without being lived in, commonly 30, 60 or 90 consecutive days. Once that threshold is passed:
- Theft cover is typically suspended entirely. Not reduced — suspended.
- Water damage is restricted or excluded, on the reasoning that a leak in an occupied house is noticed in minutes and in an empty one in months.
- Glass breakage and malicious damage may also fall away.
- The fire and lightning base normally continues, as does liability.
Read that list again. The policy stops covering the two most likely events and continues covering the least likely one, at precisely the point when nobody is there to notice a problem developing. That is not an insurer being unreasonable; it is a rational response to a genuinely different risk. But it is the opposite of what most owners assume they have bought.
Who this catches
- Second-home owners who visit at Easter and in August and leave the property empty from September to March.
- Owners who have listed a property for sale and moved out.
- Anyone whose property is empty during a renovation — a case many retail insurers exclude outright rather than merely restrict.
- Owners between long-term tenants for more than a couple of months.
- People who spend the winter in their home country and treat the Portuguese property as the second one for half the year.
That last group is the largest and the least aware, because they think of the Portuguese house as their home. The policy thinks in consecutive days of occupation.
Is your property empty for months at a time?
We will check the clause in your current policy and tell you whether the cover survives it.
Find your number
Open the condições particulares and look for the occupancy basis — usually stated near the property description as habitação própria permanente, habitação secundária or arrendada. Then find the clause in the general conditions dealing with desabitação and note the number of days. If your policy says permanent residence and your property is empty for five months a year, those two facts are in conflict and the conflict resolves against you at claim stage.
If you cannot find it, send the document to us and we will tell you. It takes minutes and it is free.
How to keep the cover intact
1. Declare the pattern at inception. A policy written from the outset as a second or holiday home carries an unoccupancy allowance appropriate to that use. The premium loading is modest — typically a few tens of euros on a mainstream property. Buying the cheapest permanent-residence policy and hoping is the expensive option.
2. Appoint a named key-holder. Many insurers will maintain theft cover on a seasonal property where a named key-holder attends at stated intervals and can respond to an alarm or an assistance callout. It also makes the 24-hour assistance service usable, which is otherwise theoretical when you are 2,000 kilometres away.
3. Comply with the shutdown conditions. Most wordings require the water to be turned off at the mains during absences and, where frost is a risk, the system drained. Some require the alarm to be set and maintained under contract. These are conditions, not suggestions — breaching them can cost the cover even for an unrelated loss.
4. Tell the insurer about renovations. An empty property with contractors coming and going is a different risk again, and one many retail policies exclude. It usually needs either a specific endorsement or a contract works arrangement.
5. Do not let it look empty. Post accumulating, shutters permanently closed, a garden nobody touches. Insurers rarely condition cover on this explicitly, but burglars read the same signals the adjuster does.
A worked example
A two-bedroom apartment near Tavira, insured on a permanent-residence basis at €195 a year, empty from mid-September to mid-April. In February the flexible hose under the kitchen sink failed. By the time the owner arrived in April, the water had been running intermittently for seven weeks; the kitchen units, flooring and the ceiling of the flat below were all affected.
The insurer paid the liability element for the neighbour’s ceiling. It declined the owner’s own water damage, citing the unoccupancy clause — the property had been empty for 148 consecutive days against a 90-day threshold. The uninsured cost to the owner was around €14,000. Written correctly as a second home, with the water isolated and a key-holder appointed, the same policy would have cost roughly €240.
What to do this week
Find the occupancy basis on your schedule and the unoccupancy period in the general conditions. If the property is genuinely a second home and the policy does not say so, that is a five-minute conversation with your insurer or with us, and it costs very little to put right. Our guides to holiday home insurance and second homes left empty for months go further into the seasonal case.
Adler & Rochefort is a commercial brand of Ownizo Unipessoal Lda, registered with the ASF under no. 425591790/3. General guidance only; conditions, premiums and cover vary by insurer and profile.