Landlords Insurance

Thinking about renting out a property or already a new landlord? Of course this can be a great way to supplement your income but there are certain costs that erode this income – one of which is of course getting the right insurance. It is essential to make sure you have insurance to cover any and all eventualities that befall property owning and letting. A useful site covering other regulatory requirements is the National Landlords Association

New Landlords listen up!

WHAT IS LANDLORDS INSURANCE? 

Landlords insurance is a packaged or bundled product that protects the owner of a property from any costs associated with its rental. 

Landlords insurance can include any and all of the following:

•    Buildings insurance  
•    Contents insurance 
•    Rental protection cover – this protects against loss of rent if you cannot rent it due to damage and repair work
•    Liability insurance – cover if you’re taken to court, this type of insurance can include property owners’ public liability and or employers’ liability 
•    Unoccupied property cover – this can cover you for void periods in between tenancies

Landlords insurance is not a legal requirement, except when you have a buy-to-let mortgage, many mortgage providers will stipulate that landlords insurance is a condition of the mortgage provision. Please check your providers terms and conditions.

IF I OCCASIONALLY RENT MY PROPERTY ON AIR BNB (or similar), WILL MY HOME INSURANCE SUFFICE? 

You must be very careful about this. If you read your terms and conditions of your home insurance and your mortgage providers terms you may find that any form of subletting invalidates most insurance policies or is against the terms of your mortgage. Therefore, if you’re renting your property for even just the shortest of terms, it is worth talking with your insurance and mortgage providers. Usually a small increase in insurance payments for the period or a ‘right to rent’ can be obtained from your mortgage provider. Equally we would advise not relying on companies like Air BNB insurance policies as these with often not offer tailored or particularly good insurance.

WHY CONSIDER LANDLORDS INSURANCE

There are countless issues that may arise when renting out a property that result in a cost to you. This can range from unavoidable wear, tear and maintenance costs which should be addressed when getting new tenants or throughout their tenancy. More serious accidents or issues like burst pipes or broken boilers, which must be addressed without delay or you may become liable to claims. Even malicious or negligent damage caused by tenants (particularly through short term rental) where costs far exceed any deposits. Even serious injury to tenants inside your property! 

For this reason and despite the associated costs not having insurance in place to cover these eventualities is crazy! Policies are often less expensive that you think!

GoCompare, Money Supermarket, Confused.com, Money Saving Expert are all websites we like! But it is also worth seeing if you can get any cashback from websites like TopCashback and Quidco. Just to confuse matters some companies do not work with these kind of websites and offer the best deals when you contact them direct like Direct Line.

Remember to always be truthful with your insurer as if you are found to have made a mistake or deliberately lied your Insurance is not valid. This could result in a small cost saving day 1 costing you the house were the worst to happen further down the line.

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