Landlord Insurance

Across the property owner policies we place, premiums start at around £215 a year. A single small flat can be under £150; a large house, a portfolio or a block runs into the thousands. What moves it is the rebuild cost rather than the value, where the property is and how it is built, the type of tenant, whether it is furnished, how much loss of rent you need, and your claims record.

Three numbers rather than one, and none of them is your mortgage balance. Buildings: the cost of rebuilding the property from scratch including demolition, site clearance and professional fees, which is not the market value and can be higher or lower than it. Contents: the cost of replacing everything you own in the property, including carpets and white goods in an unfurnished let. Property owners' liability: £2m is the common minimum and £5m is widely asked for by letting agents and local authorities, with £10m on larger or commercial lets. Add loss of rent set at the annual rent times the indemnity period, usually twelve or twenty four months. If any of those is a rounded guess, that is the one worth getting right first, because an understated buildings figure reduces every claim you ever make through the average clause, not just a total loss.

Worth separating the two things that make a policy cheap, because only one of them is good news. Cheap landlord insurance is often cheap because cover has been taken out: no loss of rent, no malicious damage by tenants, no accidental damage, a low property owners’ liability limit, or a buildings sum insured set on market value rather than rebuild cost, which leaves you underinsured and exposed to an average clause on every claim. That is not a saving, it is a deferred cost. What genuinely reduces the premium without doing that: an accurate rebuild figure rather than a rounded guess, a higher voluntary excess, paying annually instead of monthly, declaring tenant type honestly, keeping void periods short and telling your insurer about them, and having the property on one policy with your others if you own several. Across the property owner policies we place, premiums start at around £215 a year.

It pays the rent you lose while the property cannot be lived in following an insured event, which means a fire, a flood, a storm or similar. So if a burst pipe makes a flat uninhabitable for four months, loss of rent covers those four months and often the cost of putting the tenant elsewhere if your policy includes alternative accommodation. What landlord insurance loss of rent does not do is cover a tenant who simply stops paying, or a void period between tenancies, or a tenant you are trying to evict. That is rent guarantee, a separate product with its own conditions, usually requiring referencing to have been done before the tenancy and a formal arrears process to be followed. The two get confused constantly and the distinction matters: one responds to damage, the other to non-payment.

If the property is let on short stays as a business rather than on an assured shorthold tenancy, then yes, it is a different policy. Serviced accommodation insurance assumes a high turnover of occupants, cleaning and changeover between stays, self check-in and no one on site, and it brings property owners’ liability forward because you have a stream of guests rather than one tenant with a six month agreement. A standard landlord policy written around a tenancy agreement is not designed for that and may not respond. Tell us how the property is actually let rather than what the mortgage calls it, because that is what decides which policy fits.

No. A standard household policy is written on the basis that you live there, and letting is a change of use that most insurers exclude outright. If you let without telling them, a claim can be declined, and not only a tenant-related one, because the undeclared change of use can be raised against anything. It is also usually a condition of a buy-to-let mortgage that you hold proper landlord cover.

Buildings cover for the structure, which is the core. Property owners' liability, usually £2m to £5m, for injury to a tenant or visitor caused by the building. Loss of rent while the property is uninhabitable after an insured event. Landlord's contents (carpets, curtains, white goods, anything you supplied) which is a different thing from the tenant's own belongings. Alternative accommodation for the tenant is often included, and legal expenses and rent guarantee can usually be added.

No, and they are frequently confused. Loss of rent is part of the buildings cover and pays when the property cannot be lived in after an insured event such as a fire or flood. Rent guarantee is a separate product that pays when the tenant simply does not pay, and usually comes with conditions: referencing the tenant properly, a signed tenancy agreement, and prompt notification of arrears. If you want protection against a tenant defaulting, loss of rent is not it.

Yes, if the gap runs on. Most policies restrict cover once a property is unoccupied beyond 30 or 45 days, usually dropping to fire, lightning, explosion and aircraft and excluding theft, escape of water and malicious damage. Conditions normally follow: regular documented inspections, water drained down in winter, post cleared. A refurbishment between tenancies counts too. It is a five-minute phone call and it is the difference between cover and no cover.

You can be, where the injury results from the condition of the building or something you were responsible for maintaining: a faulty stair rail, an electrical fault, a defective boiler. Property owners' liability is the section that responds. Keeping gas safety certificates, electrical inspection reports and repair records up to date is both a legal duty and, in practice, what defends the claim.