Landlords Insurance Quote

Landlords insurance quote

The first thing that a landlord needs to know about getting a landlords insurance quote is that ordinary buildings and contents insurance policies won’t be of any use.

Once you rent a property to someone, however small it may be and however limited the duration of the rental, you have immediately become a landlord and to an insurance company your insurance requirements are automatically ‘commercial’. So even if your property is being let for residential purposes, you will need a form of commercial insurance.

As a result of this, those insurance policies that are designed for the owner-occupier are not going to be appropriate. No insurance company will agree to owner-occupier insurance being used to provide cover for rental situations and any existing such insurance on the property will become immediately invalid the moment the property is rented out.

The reasons for this are simple. A rental property and its contents are at greater risk from more numerous factors than one occupied by the owner or owner’s family.  Although a rented house may be no more liable to suffer storm damage than any other, by contrast it may be more vulnerable to damage caused by tenants (through accident, neglect or vandalism) than a comparable owner-occupied property is from its residents. It may not be commonplace but tenant theft of furnishings, fixtures and fittings is also something that by definition cannot arise with owner-occupiers.

Risks

It is also a fact that rented properties are likely to stand empty for longer and more frequent periods of time. This may be due to gaps between lettings or while the property is being refurbished. Whatever the cause, a property when empty is at far greater risk of vandalism and unnoticed damage (such as leaks) than when occupied.

For all these reasons and more, an insurance company needs to ensure that the right policy is in place to offer you the protection and cover you need. Getting a landlords insurance quote for the wrong type of insurance would be pointless and if taken up, it could offer you little or no protection at all.

The second thing to know, and the good news is that you don’t have to guess what you need or take wild risks by trying to live with inadequately insured property and contents. There are specialist providers of such insurance that have expert knowledge of this whole area – and specialist advice is usually a good idea. Selecting commercial insurance based upon advice from the amateur, generalist or hearsay, is not usually advisable because it is just too easy to get it wrong.