Landlord Insurance

It isn’t a legal requirement for landlords to have landlord insurance. Still, it’s worth considering as it can help financially cover your rented property. Plus, your standard home insurance policy may not cover your property when used for rental purposes.

Your mortgage lender may also require you to have suitable insurance in place before you can let to tenants. If you don’t have it, you may be breaching your mortgage terms.

Also, if someone is injured on your rental property and you’re deemed legally responsible, our landlord insurance includes cover for property owners’ liability and legal liability as occupier or landlord, offering you crucial protection.

To safeguard yourself and your property, consider at least having building insurance. Our policy includes cover for legal liability as the property owner and up to £5,000 for carpets, curtains, blinds, and white goods when the building is tenanted.

Policies like rent guarantee insurance can further help to protect your rental income.

If you have an empty property, you can get a quote for our unoccupied property insurance cover.

The best landlord insurance is subjective and depends on your personal needs. Our policy includes 40 covers as standard, ensuring extensive protection against the various risks you may face as a landlord.

Landlord buildings insurance covers repairing or rebuilding your rental property if damaged. Our 40 covers include protection against loss caused by industry-specific risks, such as malicious damage by tenants. We also include cover against unauthorised alterations, such as those carried out if the premises are used as an illegal drug farm.

Contents insurance covers the furniture and household goods that could be taken from the property. Although you’re likely to take a deposit from the tenant to cover any charges for repairing or replacing your contents, it may not be sufficient.

Taking out contents insurance with your landlord cover helps ensure you can restore your property if the furniture and household goods are damaged or stolen.

One way to identify what counts as contents is to imagine flipping your property upside down – anything that falls can be covered by contents insurance rather than buildings insurance.

As a homeowner, you’re not legally required to have home insurance. The same is true for tenants – your tenants are not legally required to protect their belongings in your rental property.

However, your tenants should understand the importance of protecting their personal contents and those owned by the landlord, as your contents won’t necessarily cover these in the event of loss or damage.

As a landlord, you don’t have the right to add to the tenancy agreement that your tenants must have their own insurance. However, you can advise that it’s wise to protect their liability as a tenant for accidental damage to your property. You can explain why when your tenant comes to sign the contract.

Certain landlord expenses can be tax deductible, including when buying landlord insurance. The government website can provide more information about expenses that can be deducted from your rental income when working out taxable profit.

We currently only provide cover for residential let properties. However, you can visit www.vasek.co.uk for a quote from Vasek Insurance. Like us, they’re part of the Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. group of companies. They might be able to provide suitable cover and can provide a policy for multiple properties.

Loss of rent cover helps when your property becomes uninhabitable, while rent guarantee insurance protects against rent arrears. Our policy includes loss of rent protection as standard, and we also offer rent guarantee insurance as separate product for additional financial security.

Our rent guarantee insurance policy also provides cover for various legal expenses. See our landlord legal and rent guarantee page for more information.

Our rent guarantee cover can help when tenants don’t pay rent. This rent insurance is available with three different excess choices. The prices for these options are on our rent guarantee page.

Having cover in place to help with legal costs can be helpful when renting a property to tenants. Our policy may help with a range of legal expenses. This includes landlord liability insurance, which provides cover when a problem with your property causes an accident. For example, if a carpet is not fitted correctly, causing a tenant to trip over and they decide to sue you.

When you insure a property, you need to state the building sum you want to insure. This is the cost of rebuilding the entire property.

Index linking is tracking changes to the rebuild cost to ensure the building sum insured remains correct. As part of our index linking cover, we provide a monthly check of the rebuild cost for you. If the rebuild cost goes up, your premium will not increase during the current term of insurance, but any changes will be reflected during the renewal period.

Should the index fall, we will not reduce the sum insured for your added protection.

If your property is unoccupied for an extended period, standard landlord insurance policies may not provide cover. However, you can get unoccupied property insurance to help safeguard against risks such as vandalism, theft, or damage during vacancy periods.

No, landlord insurance primarily protects the landlord’s investment, including the building structure, fixtures, and loss of rental income. Tenants are responsible for obtaining their own renters’ insurance to cover personal belongings and liability within the rental property.

Yes, landlord insurance often covers fixtures and fittings within the rental property, such as built-in appliances, light fixtures, and plumbing systems. However, cover may vary depending on your insurance policy and any optional add-ons chosen.

To lower landlord insurance premiums, consider measures such as increasing property security with alarm systems or deadbolts, conducting regular property maintenance to mitigate risks, and opting for a higher deductible.

Even if you reside in the property you rent out, it’s a good idea to consider landlord insurance. That’s because standard homeowner’s insurance policies may not suitably cover you, leaving you exposed to risks associated with renting out the property, such as damage and theft.

If you need to make a claim on your policy, please visit our How to Make a Claim page for full information.

• Gallagher – Just Landlords is a trading name of Arthur J. Gallagher Insurance Brokers Limited. Part of the Arthur J. Gallagher & Co group of companies.