I have a wooded lot that I was planning to build a home on, but job circumstances changed so we’re moving out of state. We’re hanging onto the land for now, in hopes that we can move back someday and build.
In the meantime, we have empty woods with one house on either side (and no one else likely to intrude–it’s not very accessible). What happens if the usual homeowner liabilities occur–tree from our property falls on a neighbor’s house, neighbor kid is playing on our property and breaks a leg, etc.? Should I be maintaining some sort of homeowner’s insurance?
There is indeed liability insurance for property. It’s included in the homeowner’s policy.
toadspittle: get a tenant’s or homeowner’s policy for your new home, and ask that liability be extended to your vacant property. There will be an extra charge for this, but not much.
My insurance knowledge is from common-law provinces in Canada. YMMV.
It might be wise to get a separate property liability policy from an agent in the town you’re leaving (and let the police know the agent’s name relative to the land). They’ll have suggestions on how to minimize your liability (and probably your policy cost). A friend ended up owning some vacant land on a cliff overlooking a river gorge, suitable for homesites. His agent rcommended to him to string an orange snow fence along the rear of the property, essentially warning people of the cliff, and put up four Posted-No Trespassing signs, and the policy was then amazingly cheap.
The insurance you need is known as “O, L & T” (Owners, Landlords & Tenants). It’s a liability policy. The main component of a homeowner’s policy is fire, etc., insurance on the building(s). If the timber on the lot is valuable, you might be able to get a floater (“marine”) insurance on it, but probably not.
Ask your insurance agent for liability insurance, period.