Not all insurance policies need to be bought or held by the person named on the policy. Life insurance is an obvious example of a type of insurance that may be bought by one person, cover another person, and pay out to a third. However, home insurance needs to be purchased and held by the person who owns the home.

Insurance Interests

The primary reason why your provider expects you to own the home that you have insured is that they want the policy-holder to have an insurance interest in the house. They want to know that you, the policyholder, want nothing bad to happen to the home. If they allowed just anyone to buy an insurance policy on a home, then you could simply buy coverage for any number of homes that you don't own and wait for damages to hit so that the insurer pays out. There is also a high probability of fraud, arson and sabotage in the case of policies being held by non-owners.

Additionally, consider that home insurance serves a very specific purpose in repairing damages. Someone who does not own the home has no interest in repairing it, should it be damaged.

Finally, if non-owners can buy insurance on someone else's home, then the insurer needs to either disallow the owner from buying insurance or pay out twice every time the home suffers damages. Non-owner policies introduce too many risks and complications to covering a single home.

Occupants And Insurance

If you own the home and the insurance is in your name, you are also likely going to be expected to live in the home. Of course, plenty of people buy a home as a rental property or as a vacation home, leaving it for months at a time. In these instances, you may be looking for something besides a basic home insurance plan. In the case of a vacation home, for instance, you'll need to ask your insurer about unoccupied home coverage. In the case of a home that you rent out, you'll want to look at landlord insurance.

Of course, if you wanted to pay for someone else's home insurance, there's no reason you can't just put the money in their hand. But you can't hold a policy for a home that is not in your name.

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