Landlord Insurance has become more popular over the last few years, with more people deciding to invest their money in property, rather than in banks. It is now one of the most popular products that we sell here at Connect Insurance Brokers. Similar to Home Insurance, Landlords Insurance is relatively inexpensive and covers your investment.
Also like Home Insurance, there are a lot of technical terms that you may not fully understand. In this article I will be talking about the most common terms used in Landlords Insurance and what they actually mean, as there are different aspects than just your standard Home Insurance policy.
Note: In this article I will talk about Building/Contents cover and Standard/Accidental cover. I have broken down what these mean in my previous article on Home Insurance. If you need to refresh your memory, you can see what these mean by clicking here.
Cover
Landlords Insurance protects a property that you own, but do not live in. These properties are either rented to a tenant, or left unoccupied. The norm is that you insure your property just for the Building/Fixtures and fittings cover because the majority of landlords do not furnish properties. In the event that you do have the property furnished, you should ideally have contents cover so that the items you own are insured against loss or damage.
Addtional Cover
You can also choose to add on more cover to your Landlord’s Insurance policy such as:
If there was accidental damage caused to the property or malicious damage caused to your property by the tenants.
If you choose not to furnish your property but provide white goods such as a washing machine, fridge etc. then this cover is ideal. White Goods cover protects these assets, and it doesn’t cost much extra to include, as there are fewer items that need to be insured. It is considerably cheaper than contents cover which insures everything within the building.
This is to ensure you aren’t left out of pocket if a tenant or member of public is injured in relation to your property or outstanding repairs.
In the event the property is rendered uninhabitable by a fire/flood, you as a landlord are not left out of pocket due to reduced income during the repairs in relation to a claim. It is even an option to have alternative accommodation cover so your clients are provided with substitute residence during the ongoing repairs to your damaged property. This ensures you do not lose revenue or good tenants following an incident.
Tenants
Your insurance price can be affected by the tenant that you have in your property as different tenants garner different risk. The most common tenants are:
- Professional Tenants (Working Tenants)
- Non Professional Tenants (DSS, Non-Working Tenants)
- Students
- Asylum Seekers
- Retired
- Additional
These tenants have different risks associated with them. The best tenant to have is a professional tenant as they are normally working the majority of the days, so are less likely to cause damage. Comparably, a Student who does not work and will only be attending lectures are in the house more; typically they will cause more wear and tear damage.
The tenant that you have in your property can affect you insurance price making it either increase or decrease so if you have a change in tenant make sure to inform you insurance company as you could save money.
Unoccupied Insurance
If you are landlord who is renovating a property, or don’t have a tenant in your property at present, you will want an Unoccupied Insurance policy. This insurance policy would cover your property more suitably than the other variations of property insurance. Unoccupied Insurance still protects you against standards perils such as fire, flood and storm but also provides increased cover against malicious damage and theft. The risk of malicious damage and theft are a higher risk when there is no tenant living in the property to discourage burglars or vandals.
I hope this has cleared up many questions you may have had regarding Landlords Insurance.
If you do have any more questions, please feel free to leave a comment with your question below. You can also click our “Get A Quote” for a competitive landlords insurance quote via the button below:
Next week I will be talking about Contents Insurance, if you have any questions you would like answering on this please leave a comment below, or on our Social Media profile, and I will answer it in next Friday’s blog.