Two clauses to find before the first frost
Almost every claim argument about an empty cottage comes back to two parts of the policy, and neither is in the summary page you get at renewal. Find both in the full wording before the heating season starts.
The first is the clause about how long the building may be left. Policies use the words “vacant” and “unoccupied”, and they do not mean the same thing. Intact’s homeowners comprehensive form, a copy of which an Ontario broker hosts, says it does not insure loss or damage “occurring after your dwelling has, to your knowledge, been vacant, for more than 30 consecutive days”, and its definitions section treats vacant as the case where all occupants have moved out with no intention of returning. Some policies also have an “unoccupied” clause, for a home whose owners are away but mean to come back, which is the usual cottage case; broker summaries put the limits on unoccupancy somewhere between 30 and 60 consecutive days. Which words your policy uses, and the number of days attached to each, is the first thing to look up.
The second is the clause about freezing, and it is the one a winter check schedule is built around.
What the freezing wording says
Intact’s form excludes water damage “caused by freezing during the usual heating season” in two situations: within a normally heated part of the dwelling “if the heat has been intentionally turned off by you or at your direction”, and within a part of the dwelling that is normally unheated. Turning the furnace off to save money, in other words, can take freezing damage out of cover on its own.
Aviva’s version, as a search result from its site quotes it, removes cover for “freezing during the usual heating season if you’ve been away from your dwelling for more than 8 consecutive days”, unless you “used reasonable care to maintain heat” or “shut off and drain the water system and domestic water containers”. We could not open the full Aviva wording, so treat that as reported rather than read. Aviva’s own winter blog adds two things: that some policies require a responsible party to check a home daily when the owner is away for more than a few days, and that the heat should be turned down no lower than 13 degrees Celsius.
Desjardins states plainly that it does not cover water damage caused by a lack of heating, and advises draining the pipes before a winter absence.
Where the 72-hour figure comes from
Owners hear “72 hours” from neighbours, caretakers and brokers, and it has a real basis. Kacaba Cottage Care, a Haliburton caretaker, describes policies that require a competent person to physically enter the dwelling once it has been left beyond a set window, “ranging from a strict 72-hour period up to a few consecutive days”. Broker summaries quoted in search results talk about checks every 48 to 72 hours. Intact used to carry a four-day condition in Ontario; its policy-change notice, as a search result quotes it, now tells customers they “no longer need to have someone check your home every four days” for heating-season freezing.
The pattern across all of it: some wordings set a check interval, some set a number of days away, and some only ask for reasonable care to keep the heat on. A check every 72 hours satisfies the strictest interval we have seen, which is why we offer it. Whether your policy needs it is a question for your broker, not for us.
The other way through: drain it
Every source above that offers an alternative to heat and checks offers the same one. Kacaba describes it as shutting off the main water supply and completely draining all plumbing lines, water heaters and fixture traps. Jeffery & Spence, an Ontario brokerage, lists keeping the heat on at a minimum temperature, draining the plumbing completely, or shutting off the water mains as the kinds of conditions a policy may set. Aviva’s quoted wording names shutting off and draining the water system. A cottage that is properly drained has nothing left in its pipes to freeze, which changes the risk entirely.
Draining does not end the need for visits. A drained cottage can still be broken into, lose shingles in a storm, collect a dangerous load of snow on its roof or take a tree through a window. Those risks sit under different parts of the policy, but they still go unnoticed for weeks if nobody looks.
Keep the evidence
Jeffery & Spence advises owners to “keep photos of shut-off valves, thermostat settings, and closing checklists”. Those three photographs answer the obvious questions after a freeze: was the water off, was the heat on, and was the place closed properly. If you have someone checking the cottage, keep their reports too, with the date and time of each visit. A report that shows the thermostat reading on a given morning is far more useful than a memory of having asked someone to drop by.
The stakes are not hypothetical. Canadian Underwriter reported a case in which a court upheld an insurer’s denial of a water damage claim worth about $100,000 on the grounds of vacancy. The details of any one case turn on its own wording and facts, but the lesson travels: the time to learn what your policy means by vacant is before the claim, not after it.
What the sources say, side by side
| Source | What it says about an empty home in winter | How we read it |
|---|---|---|
| Intact homeowners form | No cover for loss after more than 30 consecutive days vacant; vacant means moved out with no intention to return | Full wording, hosted by a broker |
| Intact homeowners form | No cover for freezing in the heating season where heat was intentionally turned off, or in normally unheated areas | Full wording, hosted by a broker |
| Intact Ontario notice | The four-day check condition for heating-season freezing has been dropped | Search result; document not opened |
| Aviva | No freezing cover after 8 consecutive days away, unless heat was maintained with reasonable care or the water was shut off and drained | Search result; wording not opened |
| Aviva blog | Some policies need a daily check when away more than a few days; keep heat at 13 °C or more | Aviva’s blog post of 26 March 2024 |
| Desjardins | No cover for water damage caused by a lack of heating | Insurer’s own page |
| Brokers and caretakers | Checks every 48 to 72 hours, or a drained and shut-off system; unoccupancy limits of 30 to 60 days | Broker and caretaker pages and search results |
We found no check-frequency wording on the public pages of Co-operators, Wawanesa, Cottage First, Duuo or Mitchell & Whale; for those insurers the answer is only in the policy document itself.
Questions to ask your broker
- Does my policy use “vacant”, “unoccupied” or both, and how many days apply to each?
- During the heating season, does it set a check interval, a number of days away, or only a duty of reasonable care to maintain heat?
- Does a check have to be inside the cottage, and by whom: a person I name, or anyone competent?
- If I drain and shut off the water system instead, what must be drained, and does that replace the checks entirely?
- What records would you want to see after a freeze-up claim?
- Does renting the cottage, even for a few weeks, change any of this?
Get the answers in writing, put them with your policy, and choose your check schedule to match.