Specialist protection for you
Many landlords who own and rent out residential property don’t realise they need specialist landlords’ insurance to cover themselves and their investment. Far too many rental property owners rely on a normal home buildings and contents insurance policy, only to discover when it’s too late that it won’t cover them well enough for the extra risks they face as a landlord.
Specialist landlord insurance is designed to limit a landlord’s exposure to the additional risks they face – and can often save them money in the long run.
So what should you be looking for in a landlord insurance policy?
It’s important to arrange an adequate level of cover for your rental property. Here are a few essentials to include:
- Contents insurance While the responsibility for insuring a tenant’s contents lies with the tenant, items such as carpets, sofas and tables that you provide to your tenants as part of the rental agreement must be covered as part of your own landlords’ insurance policy.
- Fixtures and Fittings It’s important to make sure that fixtures and fittings – including satellite dishes and wifi equipment – are included in your policy.
- Buildings insurance To cover the fabric of the building against risks such as flooding and fire.
- Landlord Liability This will cover you should a tenant injure themselves as a result of something dangerous in the property and they decide to make a claim against you for damages.
- Malicious damage If your tenants or their guests do damage to your property or its contents, malicious damage cover will help to protect you.
- Unoccupied properties Even if your property isn’t let for a couple of months, your insurance policy needs to continue to cover you.
- Alternative accommodation If a room or communal area becomes uninhabitable, alternative accommodation cover will ensure your tenants are provided with alternative accommodation, and you are compensated for loss of rent.
- Damage following emergency access If the emergency services need to damage the property to gain emergency access, ensure your policy will cover the cost of repairs.
Optional extras – complete peace of mind
There are also a range of optional extras that can be added to a Landlords’ Insurance policy. Examples include:
- Emergency cover – to protect you and your tenants when it comes to central heating failure, burst pipes or flooded drains.
- Legal cover – especially helpful if it comes with a 24 hour legal advice line.
- Rent guarantee insurance – giving you protection against rent arrears.
It doesn’t matter what type of tenant you let your property to – from retired people, students and housing association tenants to DSS and asylum seekers, the team at Hine Chartered Insurance Brokers can arrange the right level of landlords’ insurance for you. Call 0161 438 0000 and put us to the test.
