Do you need insurance for a vacant site before you build?

How it works in Ireland

The gap between buying a site and starting to build is where many self-builders have no cover at all. The works policy has not started and the site is not your home, so home insurance may not apply. Yet the law already treats you as the occupier.

That duty is highest to visitors, such as a surveyor, an engineer or a neighbour you invited. It is lower, but not zero, to recreational users and trespassers. Hazards on a one-off house site include old wells, septic tanks and slurry pits, trial holes left open after a site assessment, a derelict outbuilding, dead trees beside a road, and gaps in a hedge.

A broker can advise on a standalone public liability policy for land. If the site is part of family land, check whether the farm policy includes public liability and who is named as insured. If there is an existing building, its condition and how long it has been empty affect whether it can be insured as vacant.

Cover is normally arranged for the person who owns the land. If the site is still in someone else’s name, settle ownership first. See building on family land.

Before the professionals arrive, ask each for evidence of professional indemnity and public liability cover, and agree who will make trial holes safe. When building starts, contract works and public liability cover for the build should begin no later than the first day on site. Ask the broker to confirm in writing whether the new policy replaces or sits alongside the site cover.

A common mistake

Doing nothing because nobody visits the site. The duty to a trespasser or recreational user is lower, not absent, and it depends on what you knew about the hazard. Fence or fill what you can, put up signs at the entrance, keep dated photographs, and report any incident to your insurer promptly, even if no claim has been made.