This was taken from an email sent to one of our employees;

We want everyone out there to know that property management services are not a substitute for the proper insurance coverage or a vacant homeowners insurance policy. When our employer moved us to The Woodlands Texas last Spring, we had a very hard time selling our home in Boca Raton, FL.

The company offered to buy the home for about $40,000 less than what we thought we could get, so we chose to retain the risk ourselves, and take the additional time to sell the property. The company provided Property Management Services through Prudential Relocation, their moving and relocation company. From what everyone told us, property management services is all we would need and these included a landscaping company company coming by the property every Tuesday to cut the lawn, clean up leaves, etc.

We never even thought about insurance. On day 108 of the house being empty we had a very violent tropical storm blew threw (we had been living in Texas) and a small section of the roof was blown off. Rain soaked much of the 3rd bedroom.

The problem was, no one here knew about it. The rain was not taken care of and quickly turned into a $60,000 mold and mildew claim. To make a long story short, the insurance company was willing to pay $10,000 but would not pay the balance of the claim because the house was unoccupied. Let me tell you, property management services on your home for sale does not mean you do not need a vacant home insurance policy.

Don't let your kid's neighbor housesit without the proper insurance

Two years ago, my husband's job took him on a temporary assignment of 5 months to Prague to finish up a large computer project for the Czech government. Of course it was the opportunity of a lifetime to go with him and I figured a way to take leave from my job (...no loss if they fired me anyway) to join him in this amazing city, which was untouched by the destruction left behind in WWII.

Siteseeing aside, we asked the 20 year old son of a neighbor to "housesit" while we were away. What's the worst that can happen, spilled beer? We felt better withsome living in the house and we could avoid that expensive vacant home insurance, or so we thought. Because we had someone to stay in the house we had no idea we would not rely on our current homeowners insurance policy which was paid up until the end of the year.

While we were away (in the 4th month) a large tulip poplar tree fell on the house during a windstorm. Jason acted quickly to get the hole repaired using the credit card we had left him, but I had to fly home to see to the contractor arrangments etc. The claim we submitted to the insurance company for over $40,000 was totally denied because they told us we did not have the right insurance on the house. We had needed to write a special policy why we were away called a landlord tenant policy (also called a tenant boarder policy).

As you can guess, we had no idea we needed to do this and didn't even think to call our agent. It was a total disater and all the extra money my husband made by taking the overseas assignment quickly was eaten up in this massive repair.