Insurance and your LPA

The urgent review

• If the donor has moved into care, tell the insurer immediately — unoccupied property terms apply, often within 30 days.
• Check whether carers working in the home need to be declared, and whether employer's liability is needed for a directly employed carer.
• Cancel or amend motor insurance if the donor has stopped driving; tell the DVLA where a condition affects fitness to drive.
• Review travel and health insurance before any trip.

Disclosure

Policies worth checking for value

• Old life policies, endowments and funeral plans the donor may have forgotten.
• Critical illness or income protection policies that may now pay out.
• Payment protection or waiver of premium benefits on existing loans.
• Duplicate cover the donor has been paying twice for.

A worked example

Consider Priya, who holds a registered property and financial affairs LPA for her uncle Rajan. When Rajan moves permanently into a care home, Priya tells the buildings insurer within the week, because most standard home policies exclude cover, or apply strict conditions such as weekly visits and drained water systems, once a property has been unoccupied for 30 days or more. She also cancels Rajan's motor insurance and notifies the DVLA that he has stopped driving following his diagnosis, rather than leaving the policy to lapse quietly, which could have left an outstanding claim on a car nobody was driving. Finally, she finds an old critical illness policy in Rajan's paperwork that had never been claimed on, and submits a claim using her certified copy of the LPA as proof of authority.

Priya also arranges a specialist unoccupied property policy once the standard home insurer confirms it will not extend normal cover beyond 60 days, and she keeps the correspondence with both insurers in Rajan's paperwork alongside her other attorney records. When the care home later asks about employer's liability cover for a privately hired carer visiting twice a week, Priya checks and confirms it is required, and arranges it before the carer's first visit rather than after.

When the property is rented out instead of sold

If the donor's home is let out rather than sold while they are in care, standard buildings insurance is not enough — a landlord policy is needed, covering the change of use and the additional risks of tenants rather than an owner-occupier. See renting out the donor's property for the wider process of becoming a landlord as attorney, including deposit protection and gas safety checks that a private landlord must also arrange.

Cover to check when you first start acting

Common questions

Read next

• Attorney record keeping: what to write down and keep
• Renting out the donor's property as an attorney
• How to act as an attorney: a practical first-90-days guide