No, your insurer does not require 14-day inspections

The claim

Search for home watch in almost any American second-home market and you will meet the same sentence, phrased a dozen ways: your insurance company requires the property to be checked every seven to fourteen days, or your coverage lapses.

It appears on operator websites, in industry checklists, and in aggregator content. It is usually stated without a carrier name, without a policy citation, and without any quoted policy language.

What we found when we looked

We went looking for the underlying document — any carrier publication, underwriting guideline, or policy form imposing an inspection interval on an unoccupied residence. Across the major US high-value personal lines carriers, we found none.

Chubb's published guidance on vacant and unoccupied homes recommends maintaining a consistent temperature of 55°F or higher, recommends shutting off water at the main, and suggests considering a property management company for early problem detection. It states no interval. The one 'monthly at a minimum' inspection recommendation we could locate sits in Chubb's Irish commercial-lines material, which governs neither US homeowners policies nor residences.

AIG's private client operation publishes risk-mitigation guidance without an inspection frequency. PURE publishes a device discount, not an inspection requirement.

Where it actually comes from

The seven-day standard is real. It is British. Unoccupied-home insurance in the United Kingdom routinely conditions cover on inspections at set intervals — most commonly every seven days, sometimes fourteen — with written inspection records required to substantiate them.

That requirement, detached from the market it belongs to, has become a talking point in American marketing. It is not a lie anyone invented so much as a fact that emigrated and lost its passport.

What the industry body says

The National Home Watch Association defines home watch as a visual inspection of a home or property, looking for obvious issues. Its accreditation standards require background checks, insurance and bonding, and verification of business licences at state, county and municipal level.

What its published materials do not say, anywhere, is that carriers require home watch, credit it, or accept it in satisfaction of any policy condition. The claim is not coming from the industry's own body. It is coming from individual operators' marketing.

What is true instead

The accurate version is narrower and considerably more useful, because it is checkable.

• New York Insurance Law § 3404 provides that the standard fire policy does not cover loss occurring while a building is vacant or unoccupied beyond sixty consecutive days, unless otherwise provided in writing added to the policy.
• The standard homeowners freeze exclusion does not apply where the insured used reasonable care to maintain heat, or to shut off and drain the system. Whether that care was used is decided on the evidence.
• Some high-value carriers apply a vacant-house deductible — Chubb's is five percent of the dwelling limit — where a house is substantially empty of furnishings for more than thirty days and the carrier was not notified.
• Premium discounts in this area attach to hardware, not services. PURE publishes up to five percent for an automatic shut-off with low-temperature monitoring; industry-typical figures run eight to twelve percent for a qualifying device.

Every one of those can be verified against a statute, a policy form, or a carrier's own published material. None of them requires anyone to invent an inspection schedule.

Why we are telling you this

Because we sell scheduled property oversight, and this claim would help us sell it. We would rather be the firm whose statements survive being checked by your attorney, your broker, or you.

A firm that will repeat an unverified claim to win your business will repeat one to keep it.

Sources. Chubb, published guidance on safeguarding vacant and unoccupied homes (US) · National Home Watch Association, published homeowner and professional materials · PURE Insurance, published device-discount guidance · UK unoccupied-home insurance market documentation (inspection interval conditions) · New York Insurance Law § 3404. This is general information about statutory and policy language, not legal or insurance advice. Your own policy and its endorsements govern.