Insurance on Rental Property

Insurance on rental property staying in control

Whether you’re an established and very experienced landlord or someone who is just researching what’s involved in becoming one, you probably know that it’s not an easy business to be in. One of the hardest things to do is to ensure that you stay in control of the costs and risk associated with owning a rental property. Having the right sort of insurance on rental property can make your life a lot easier.

That’s because most landlords admit to worrying fairly constantly about their property. It doesn’t matter how good the tenants are, you probably are always wondering about things such as the condition of the property and whether or not the tenants are meeting their obligations to look after it in a responsible fashion.

Your worries may increase significantly during times of storms, flood or if your property is empty for reasons of repair or renovation etc.

You are right to be worried overall. Bad luck can strike at any time through natural disasters and sooner or later you may well be unfortunate enough to encounter bad tenants who will have damaged your property and its contents or who run up large rent arrears shortly before disappearing.

It’s also a fact that as a landlord you have legal liabilities. If someone is injured or their property damaged directly or indirectly while on your property, a court could make significant damage awards against you.

All in all, you may feel that insurance is not only a good idea but in fact essential if you’re to sleep at night.

This is where you may need to be cautious and avoid the siren like calls that tell you ordinary owner-occupier property insurance will do because it most certainly won’t.

Any such rental insurance is immediately invalidated the moment you rent out your property. As a landlord your requirements and risks are different to those of an ordinary residential owner-occupier and you will need special insurance on rental property to cover those risks.

There is no point in having insurance that offers you no protection and contrary to some urban myth, insurance companies do have ways of checking whether or not a property is tenant or owner occupied.

So, unless you like the idea of sitting facing huge bills with only your chequebook to help you, selecting the right form of insurance on rental property is important. There are specialist providers of such insurance operating on the Internet and they will have a portfolio of policies to suit most needs. Looking at their policies and information could be a very useful investment of 5 minutes of your time.