What can I cover with landlord insurance?

Landlord insurance provides important safeguards for the owner of buy to let property. How does this protection work and what exactly are you buying with landlord insurance?

The building

• first and foremost, the most critical protection is provided for the very structure and fabric of the building or buildings in which you have invested – and that is probably the most important feature of landlord insurance;
• whether you are the landlord of buy to let residential property or the owner of commercial properties such as shops, warehousing, offices, or industrial units, all are vulnerable to such potential disasters as fire, flooding, impacts, storm damage or vandalism;
• landlord insurance buys you protection against such loss or damage, so you might want to make sure that you arrange it through a specialist provider – such as those of us at Cover4LetProperty – to get the protection most appropriate for your particular needs and circumstances;
• one of the crucial details it is always important to get right, for example, is the total sum insured – the amount designed to ensure that the settlement of any claim for the total loss of the building is enough to rebuild it;

The contents

• whether you have let the premises fully furnished, part furnished or with just a minimum of carpets, curtains and fittings, landlord insurance can buy you protection against those items of the contents of your let property that you own;
• you might want to extend the cover to accidental damage, and you may also want to investigate whether malicious damage by your tenants is included in the risks covered by your building and contents insurance (our policies here at Cover4LetProperty, for instance, include that cover as standard);

The liabilities

• with your insurance as a landlord, you are also able to gain valuable protection against the risk of a tenant – or indeed, one of their visitors, or even a member of the public – from suing you, as the landlord of the property, for negligence;
• many of your responsibilities as a landlord are defined by law and given legislative effect through health and safety legislation or local bylaws – the main aspects of these are identified on the government website;
• in addition to these statutory obligations, you also have a common law duty of care as the landlord and property owner;
• if you are held responsible for any personal injury or loss or damage to the property of your tenants, members of the public or visitors to your premises, you might face a potentially huge claim in compensation – landlord insurance typically buys you indemnity against such claims;
• the seriousness of the possible threat facing a landlord in this regard is illustrated by the fact that insurance typically offers protection of up to at least £2 million and it is not uncommon for that limit to be raised to £5 million or more;

The rent

• as a landlord, the success of your business relies upon the rent you receive – indeed, if you are depending on rental income to help make the regular buy to let mortgage repayments, rental income may be essential to your continued ownership of the property;
• yet if there is a major insured incident which leaves the premises so severely damaged that they cannot be occupied, you stand to lose the rental income – yet still have to make any mortgage repayments, of course;
• for that reason, landlord insurance typically includes compensation for loss of rental income in those circumstances.

It may be clear, therefore, that when you are arranging landlord insurance, you are buying some important safeguards for your let property and the business you are running.

If you have any questions or queries relating to your landlord insurance, please feel free to contact us. We will be more than happy to clarify.