COVERTRADE SERVICES
Block of Flats Insurance
Specialised coverage tailored to protect your block of flats and rental properties.
Who Is Actually Responsible For Insuring The Block?
It depends on the lease, and getting the answer wrong is the most common reason a block ends up either double-insured or not insured at all. Usually it is the freeholder, but where leaseholders have bought the freehold between them, or set up a right to manage company, the responsibility has moved to them.
Individual leaseholders never insure the structure of their own flat. They pay for it through the service charge and insure their own contents and improvements. If you have bought a share of freehold and nobody has mentioned this, the duty is now collectively yours.
From there, three things matter more on a block than on any other property: the rebuild figure, liability for the communal areas, and (if the building is run by its own residents) cover for the people sitting on the board.
Rebuilding A Block, Not A Flat
The sum insured is the cost of rebuilding the whole block from the ground, not the market value of the flats and not what people paid for them. In a rising market those numbers diverge dramatically in one direction; in a period building with a slate roof they diverge in the other.
It has to include demolition and site clearance, professional fees, and the cost of meeting current building regulations on rebuild, which on an older block is frequently well above the original construction standard.
Get it from a professional reinstatement valuation and revisit it every three to five years. Construction costs have moved sharply and index-linking has not kept pace, so a figure set before 2020 is very likely short. Underinsurance on a block is severe because the average condition applies to the whole building: insure a £4m rebuild for £3m and every claim is settled at three quarters.
Fire Safety And Building Safety Duties
This has been the hardest part of the block insurance market since 2017, and it is worth understanding what insurers are actually asking about.
External walls. Construction type, cladding and insulation, and whether any remediation has been carried out or is planned. An EWS1 form where you have one.
Compartmentation and detection. Fire doors and their condition, protected escape routes, alarm and detection systems, and whether a waking watch is in place.
Duties under the Building Safety Act. Higher-risk buildings carry accountable person duties and a safety case regime, and insurers will ask whether you are meeting them.
Blocks with unresolved issues have faced sharply higher premiums and far fewer willing insurers. What gets the best available terms is documentation: the fire risk assessment, evidence of works done, and a clear account of what remains outstanding and when it will be addressed.
Ask About These
Sections block policies most often lack.
- Directors and officers, for an RMC or RTM
- Property owners’ liability limit
- Loss of rent or alternative accommodation
- Lift and engineering inspection
- Terrorism, where lenders require it
- A current professional valuation
- Flexible payment options
- Dedicated account managers
- Out-of-hours contact should you need to make a claim or just have a question
- A quick and easy, pain-free service
- An excellent customer experience
Directors And Officers Cover For An RMC
If you sit on the board of a residents’ management company or an RTM company, you are a company director, usually unpaid and often without realising the exposure that comes with it. Leaseholders can and do bring claims against directors personally. Over service charge decisions, major works consultation, choice of contractor, or how a dispute was handled.
Directors and officers cover responds to those allegations and pays the defence costs, which are usually the larger part of the problem. It is inexpensive and routinely missing from block policies arranged on price alone. If your building is run by its leaseholders rather than a professional freeholder, it is the section to ask about first.
Communal Areas And Property Owners’ Liability
The parts nobody owns individually are the parts you are answerable for: entrances, staircases, lifts, corridors, bin stores, car parks and grounds. A visitor injured on a communal staircase claims against whoever is responsible for the building, not against the leaseholder whose door they were heading to.
£5m is the usual limit and £10m is common on larger blocks. Lifts, gates and play equipment need their inspection regimes kept up, and contractors working on the building should be carrying their own liability cover with copies of certificates held. Where a managing agent is appointed, be clear about which of you is arranging what. Assuming the other party has it covered is how gaps appear.
Recovering The Premium Through Service Charge
The lease normally allows the buildings premium to be recovered from leaseholders through the service charge, and it normally also requires the insurance to be arranged on particular terms. A specified level of cover, sometimes in joint names, sometimes with the lender noted.
Leaseholders are entitled to ask for a summary of the cover and to see the policy, and disputes about block insurance are among the most common leasehold arguments there are. Transparency prevents most of them: share the summary at renewal, explain any large increase, and keep the valuation evidence. Premiums can be paid monthly or annually.
What We Need To Quote
The address, age, construction and number of storeys, how many flats and whether any are let, the reinstatement cost from a professional valuation, what the communal areas include and whether there is a lift, the cladding and fire safety position including any EWS1 or remediation status, who manages the building, and the claims history for the last five years.
Protect Your Property
So why wait? Protect your block of flats today with CoverTrade's comprehensive insurance coverage. Contact us now to schedule a consultation with one of our expert advisors.
Cover that often goes with this
The gaps we most often find sitting next to this policy.
Common questions
Who is responsible for insuring a block of flats?+
Whoever the lease says, which is usually the freeholder or, where leaseholders have taken control, the residents' management company or RTM company. Individual leaseholders do not insure the structure of their own flat. They pay for it through the service charge and insure their own contents and any improvements they have made. If you have bought a share of freehold, you have collectively become the party responsible, which surprises a lot of new owners.
What sum insured does a block need?+
The cost of rebuilding the entire block, not the market value of the flats and not the sum of what people paid. That includes demolition and site clearance, professional fees, and meeting current building regulations on rebuild, which on an older block can be substantially more than the original construction standard. It should come from a professional reinstatement valuation, reviewed every three to five years. Index-linking alone has not kept pace with construction costs.
Do RMC or RTM directors need their own cover?+
It is strongly advisable. Sitting on the board of a residents' management company makes you a company director, and leaseholders do bring claims against directors personally over service charge decisions, major works consultation and choice of contractor. Directors and officers cover pays the defence costs, which are usually the bigger problem, and it is inexpensive. It is also one of the most common things missing from a block policy bought on price.
How does cladding or fire safety affect our insurance?+
Considerably, and it has been one of the hardest parts of this market since 2017. Insurers ask about external wall construction, cladding type, compartmentation, alarm and detection systems, and any waking watch or remediation programme. Blocks with unresolved issues have faced sharply higher premiums and a much smaller pool of insurers. Having the documentation together (EWS1 where you have one, the fire risk assessment, and evidence of any remediation) is what gets the best available terms.
Can the premium be recovered through the service charge?+
Normally yes; most leases provide for it, and most also require the insurance to be arranged on particular terms. Leaseholders are entitled to a summary of the cover and to inspect the policy, and block insurance is one of the most common subjects of leasehold dispute. Sharing the summary at renewal and explaining any significant increase prevents most arguments before they start.
How much does block of flats insurance cost?+
Nobody publishes a credible average, and it is worth understanding why rather than trusting one. A block's premium follows its reinstatement cost, construction, height, number of flats and claims history, and those vary so widely that an average across all blocks would be meaningless. You will see a cheap headline figure advertised, which tells a twelve-flat Victorian conversion nothing useful. What is worth knowing is the shape of the cover: property owners' liability is commonly £2m for blocks under ten flats, £5m for ten to thirty, and £10m above that. Send us a professional reinstatement valuation and the building details and we will get real numbers.
What is a joint names policy on a block?+
It is a policy insuring more than one interested party (commonly the freeholder and the RMC, and sometimes leaseholders or a lender as well) so each has rights under it and the insurer cannot pursue one for a loss it has paid the other. Leases and mortgage conditions often specify it. If yours does, it needs setting up that way rather than added later.
What our customers say on Google
5.0average from 169 Google reviews
Related reading
Guides from our team on the cover discussed on this page.
