Insurance
Home insurance while a sitter lives in
Someone living in your home for a few weeks can change what your home insurance covers.
What home insurance usually covers on a housesit, what it usually leaves out, and what to ask your insurer before you go.
A pipe under the kitchen sink lets go in the fourth week of a six-week sit. The sitter turns off the water, calls the plumber on the fridge list and takes photos.
By lunchtime it’s dry.
The homeowner rings their insurer from abroad. The first questions aren’t about the floor. They’re about how long the homeowner has been away, and who exactly has been living in the house.
Why it goes wrong
Home insurance is priced for the home as the insurer understands it. A sit changes who’s living there, and for how long the owner is away.
Not telling the insurer can matter: the Association of British Insurers (ABI) says that if you don’t tell your insurer about changes, “this could affect your cover”.
What home insurance usually covers
- Your buildings and your contents, against the risks your policy names.
- Liability (insurance that pays if someone is hurt, or their things are damaged, and you’re found legally responsible).The ABI says home insurance usually covers “some of your personal legal liabilities – for example if a visitor injures themselves and you are found to be legally liable for their injury”.For a housesit, that matters because a sitter staying with your permission is your visitor in law (Occupiers’ Liability Act 1957).Whether your policy’s liability cover reaches someone living in your home is up to its wording: ask (question 4 below).
- Accidental damage cover (for things broken by accident), only if your policy includes it.The ABI says policies “can vary, including if you are covered for accidental damage”, and insurers may offer it “on top of your basic policy”.
What it usually leaves out
The ABI lists what you “will not usually be covered against”:
- “General wear and tear”;
- “Damage due to lack of maintenance”;
- “Mechanical or electrical breakdown”;
- “Restricted cover when your home is empty for a long period, often 30 or 60 days, (specified in the policy) or is let to tenants”;
- “Any amount above the limits specified in the policy”.
What to ask your insurer before the sit
- A housesitter will be living in my home for [dates] while I’m away. Do I need to tell you, and does it change anything?
- Does a sitter living in count as the home being occupied, for any limit on how long it can be empty?
- Does my accidental damage cover, if I have it, reach damage by someone I’ve let stay who isn’t family?
- Does my liability cover reach the sitter, if they’re hurt in my home?
Get the answers in writing; an email is enough.
What it costs
If you’re choosing a policy, or checking what yours costs against others: the ABI’s average combined home insurance premium was £383 between April and June 2026; buildings only £309; contents only £118.
These averages (ABI, 3 August 2026) are “based on the price customers pay for their cover rather than what they are quoted”. Nothing we’ve read says a sitter changes the price; ask your insurer.
Under the agreement on Reputable Sitters
If you use another agreement, or none, check what yours says.
- Damage: whoever causes damage carelessly or on purpose pays for it:
- the sitter, for their own, and for anyone they ask to do part of their job;
- each person staying with the sitter, for their own.
- Wear, breakdowns and genuine accidents are the homeowner’s. Your home insurance is how you meet your share.
- A safe home: the homeowner hands over a home that, as far as they know, is safe and fit to live in.And each of you tells the other at once about any danger you know of.The law still expects the homeowner to take reasonable care that the sitter, and anyone staying with them, is reasonably safe in the home.
If you’re the sitter
If you use the agreement on Reputable Sitters, your share of damage is what you, or anyone you ask to do part of your job, cause carelessly or on purpose.
Each person staying with you pays for their own.
The homeowner’s insurance covers their home and their things, on their policy’s terms; ask your own insurer whether any liability cover you have reaches damage you cause in someone else’s home.
“Insurance for sitters” has more.
How to talk about it
“I’ve told my insurer you’ll be living in, and here’s what they said” is worth a minute before the sit.
And from the sitter: “I don’t have liability cover, so let’s agree how we’d handle a breakage.”
How it works on Reputable Sitters
Your agreement says who pays for damage, in plain words both of you see before signing. It doesn’t sell, arrange or check insurance.
The legal bit
This is information, not legal advice. Your agreement binds the two of you; it can’t change what your insurer pays.
Only your policy’s wording and your insurer can say what’s covered, so get their answer in writing.
Where next
Tell us what we’ve got wrong: listening@reputablesitters.com
Information, not legal advice. Laws change, so check anything important with the official source linked on each page.
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Reputable Sitters Ltd, registered in England and Wales, no. 17032078. Registered office: 71–75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9JQ.
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