Snowbird Security – for the home at home!

Snowbird security is a very broad topic. Concerning yourself with it is critical for your state of mind to have worry free away time. Reams of information is available from a host of sources about keeping safe when you are at your snowbird destination. This page is one.

One reliable source for Snowbrid security is the Canadian government. The deliver current travel advice and travel advisories for Snowbirds and others with country-specific information, particularly if you are traveling to destinations outside of North America. See – Travel Advisories for more information from the Canadian government.

The government travel advisories do not address the issue of your home at home.

What about security for your home when you are away?

To address this issue these pages focus on this aspect of Snowbird security for the home while you are off Snowbirding! On these pages we’ll be talking about:

Home Insurance Concerns

The issues with Snowbird Security for the traveller’s at-home home is, what happens if something happens?

Will we be covered by our insurance policy?

Insurance companies typically want to know if a home they insure, and one that is left empty for extended periods of time, is being checked in on, on a fairly frequent basis. Te frequency of home checks is specific to the insurer of your home. This is information you want to know.

For the home insurance company it is to ensure that if something untoward happens in or to the Snowbird’s home, that remedial action can be taken sooner rather than later, to reduce the potential damage to the home.

Of course, this reduces the amount of insurance dollars that may need to be spent to repair the home and can lessen the liability to the insurance company.

When  leaving your home to fly south to your Snowbird location of coice, whether in the winter or for any period of time more than a couple of days, it’s our recommendation that you check with your house insurance company to determine what level of house monitoring they require while the house is left empty in order to keep your insurance policy in good standing.

What our insurance company says…

In our case, we need to have a walk-through at least once a week if – and this is important – we have turned off the water supply and drained the lines. If you home still has an active water supply, our insurance company requires us to have someone walk through the house on a DAILY basis during the winter, to ensure that if the heat goes off and the water pipes freeze, that when the heat comes back on, a broken pipe isn’t drowning our home.

It seems that water damage from frozen pipes in empty homes with the water on is a major source of insurance claims. Protect yourself, and know what your insurance company wants, and then, make sure you have backup!

By that, I mean that the person checking our house every 48 hours is logging the time of the visit on a sheet of paper we left in plain sight for when they enter the front door. Date, time, and name of checker. Sure, this can be fabricated, but why? Wouldn’t you want to know if your house has an issue.

There are other options of course, covered in additiona pages. Whichever way you use to monitor your home while you are away, make sure that method is OK’d by your insurance, won’t you?

Now we’ll talk a bit about Snowbird security forces, then wireless monitoring.

This links to a page on this site about snowbird security forces.

This links to a page on this site with information about wireless monitoring.