Vacant Express by Global Indemnity

Summary

Vacant property can create an awkward placement problem for independent agencies. 

A client may be between tenants, renovating a building, purchasing a property that will temporarily sit empty, beginning new construction, or holding vacant land. Those aren't necessarily unusual client situations, but they can fall outside the appetite of the agency's everyday property markets. 

Vacant Express gives agents direct access to specialty property products built around those situations. Registered agents can quote, bind, and issue qualifying policies electronically, with products covering vacant residential and commercial properties as well as related renovation, construction, landlord, and land exposures. 

Why should agencies care? These risks may not represent a large percentage of an agency's book, but when one appears, the producer needs somewhere to place it without turning a relatively straightforward property exposure into a lengthy specialty-market search. 

What stood out during our review is the combination of specialization and accessibility. Vacant Express has focused on vacant property since 1978, but the agent experience is designed around getting qualifying risks quoted and issued through an online system rather than making agents navigate a highly manual specialty placement process. 

Key Features:

• Online agent quoting, binding, and policy issuance 
• Vacant residential property coverage 
• Vacant commercial building coverage 
• Renovation and builders risk products 
• Landlord and short-term rental coverage 
• Vacant land coverage 
• Property and general liability options 
• Direct billing and electronic payment options 

Best fit for:

• Independent agencies that periodically encounter vacant residential or commercial properties 
• Agencies serving real estate investors, landlords, property managers, contractors, or clients with transitional properties 
• Producers wanting direct online access to a specialty property market without a production-volume commitment 
• Agencies needing options for renovations, builders risk, vacant land, or related property exposures 
• Teams wanting to retain existing client relationships when a property temporarily moves outside standard-market appetite 

May not be ideal for:

• Agencies looking primarily for standard occupied commercial or homeowners property markets 
• Organizations whose existing carrier and wholesale relationships already handle these specialty risks efficiently 
• Risks that fall outside Vacant Express's underwriting appetite, geographic availability, or coverage parameters 
• Agencies looking for a broad technology platform rather than access to a specific specialty insurance market 

Deeper Dive

The Problem Being Solved: Properties don't always remain in a standard occupied state. 

A homeowner moves before selling. A landlord is between tenants. An investor purchases a building that will remain empty before renovation. A contractor begins construction. A commercial property sits vacant while a new occupant is found. 

The insurance need continues, but the exposure has changed. Standard property markets may restrict or exclude vacant properties because fire, vandalism, theft, water damage, liability, and other risks can change when a building isn't occupied. 

That can leave an independent agent searching for a specialty option for an account that may otherwise fit comfortably within the agency. Vacant Express is built around that gap. 

Its product set gives agents access to coverage for several stages of the property lifecycle, while its online system is intended to make qualifying risks relatively straightforward to quote, bind, and issue. 

Why It Matters to Agencies: Specialty-market access is most useful when an agency can use it when the need appears. An agency may not write enough vacant property to develop deep internal expertise or meet meaningful production commitments with a specialty provider. But producers still need a reliable answer when an existing client suddenly has a vacant building or begins a renovation project. We like that Vacant Express doesn't impose a premium-volume requirement on registered agents. 

The electronic workflow matters for the same reason. A producer handling an occasional vacant property shouldn't necessarily need to learn a complicated manual submission process simply to obtain a quote. 

There is also value in the breadth around transitional property. A dwelling can move between vacant and landlord occupancy. Another property may move from acquisition to renovation and eventually to occupancy. Having several related products available through the same specialty relationship can make those transitions easier for the agency to manage. 

The practical value is being able to keep serving the client when the property no longer fits the agency's standard market. 

What Stood Out to Us: What stood out during our review is how focused Vacant Express remains on the actual placement problem. This isn't technology looking for an insurance use case. It's specialty underwriting being delivered through a relatively simple digital agent experience. 

Registered agents can access the web-based system at any time to quote, bind, and electronically issue qualifying coverage. Vacant Express also handles billing directly with the insured after the policy is written. 

The product range is broader than the company name may initially suggest. In addition to vacant dwellings and commercial buildings, agents can access options for renovations, builders risk, landlord properties, vacant land, and short-term rentals. 

We also think the ability to handle changing occupancy deserves attention. For example, Vacant Express indicates that certain vacant dwelling policies can transition to landlord coverage when the property becomes rented. 

That's useful because vacancy is often temporary. The client's insurance needs shouldn't be evaluated only at the moment the initial policy is written. 

For us, Vacant Express's differentiation is straightforward: it gives independent agents direct, digital access to a specialty property market for risks that can become difficult to place precisely because the property is vacant, under construction, being renovated, or otherwise between traditional uses. 

Final Thoughts

We came away seeing Vacant Express as a useful specialty-market relationship for an exposure that can appear unexpectedly in an otherwise ordinary client account. The value isn't that every agency needs to build a vacant-property practice. It's that agents need a dependable option when a client's property temporarily stops fitting standard-market assumptions. 

We like the combination of specialized underwriting, several related property products, online quote-bind-issue capability, direct billing, and no premium-volume requirement. That can make the market practical even for agencies that encounter vacant and transitional properties only occasionally. 

For an agency principal or property producer, Vacant Express is worth further evaluation if vacant buildings, renovations, construction projects, landlord transitions, or similar risks regularly force the team to begin searching for a market. We would compare its appetite and forms against the difficult property accounts your agency has handled over the last year. If those risks fit and the online workflow materially simplifies placement, Vacant Express could be a useful specialty option to have available before the next difficult property exposure lands on a producer's desk. 

* Unbiased review based upon information and insights available at the time of publication.