Landlord Household Insurance

Landlord household insurance

When preparing to rent out property the insurance you get to cover it is a little bit different to what might normally be needed for your own home. After all, a rented house is a business venture and as such, landlord household insurance contains one or two aspects which are designed to protect your investment.

There is always the normal protection for the building, but there are other considerations like rent and the actual tenants themselves.

A typical landlord insurance policy will contain all or many of the following elements:

First the buildings insurance involves protection for the structure itself against the cost of repairs or a complete rebuild in the event of a disaster like a fire. What might be worth paying particular attention to here is the sum insured, or the total amount of money an insurance company would be prepared to payout if the home had to be rebuilt from the ground up.

Landlords contents insurance may not always be necessary but anything you own which will be kept in the house is worth bearing in mind. So you may have carpets, and even some items like beds and sofas, and chairs if you are looking to let the property furnished. All of these things could be damaged or stolen so this may be worth considering.

Liability insurance

One of the key considerations with renting a property is that in certain circumstances you could be considered to have a significant amount of responsibility regarding the safety of the tenants. This is why it's important to ensure the wiring of a property is at an acceptable and safe standard, for example. Landlords Liability insurance can be part of a landlord household insurance policy and can protect against any personal injury claims which may arise. Normally it will cover the cost of your legal defence if needed and even the cost of any compensation.

There may also be a loss of rent insurance element, which can cover somebody for a set period of time if a building is wrecked and taken out of action by something like a fire or flood, which could mean that you are losing rent while nobody is in the property. This kind of cover may provide you with a replacement rent for up to 12 months, to give a rough example.

A landlord household insurance deal may also include accidental damage cover for the building, which can apply if the tenant accidentally wrecks something - a frustrating and potentially dispute-causing outcome which can be made easier by the insurance policy. These are just some of the ways in which landlord insurance is different to your conventional home cover deal, in that it is geared not just to protect the property but also your business interests.