American Landlord Shares his Landlord Insurance Tips

One American landlord shares his thoughts on cutting his landlord insurance premiums.

He advises improving fire safety at a renatl property and upgrading security to bring down his landlord insurance premiums.

Read his tips in full here


Portfolio Landlord Insurance - 5% Price Beat Guarantee

Portfolio landlord insurance scheme launched

Portfolio landlords are set to benefit from a new GAURANTEED price beating landlord insurance policy launched by Property Hawk in association with Alan Boswell.

The landlord insurance policy guarantees to save a landlord a minimum of 5% on their comparible landlord insurance costs.

For landlords with 15 or more properties or £2m or more cover they can now look to start saving money on their landlord insurance today.

Landlord insurance broker offers FREE contents insurance for landlords

Mortgages are harder to get these days and there are an increasing number of people turning to the rental market for housing which is good news for landlords. However, landlords in the furnished sector often find it difficult to get contents cover for their properties. Now Adrian Flux's landlord division can include free contents cover with its landlord's building insurance to offer a comprehensive package.

"By including free contents cover with the buildings insurance we are able to offer landlords an extremely cost-effective policy," says Julie Carter of Flux. "It also cuts down on the paperwork and hassle for landlords when it comes to sorting insurance."

Flux's scheme offers landlords comprehensive cover for the building itself. The free contents insurance is designed for furniture and fittings that landlords supply with furnished lets, including beds, curtains, sofas and kitchen equipment, and some of Flux's policies offer cover up to £10,000 in value.

The free cover is only for the landlord's fixtures and fittings and is not designed to cover a tenant's personal property items.

Adrian Flux Insurance Services aims to offer cheaper property insurance and has a range of policies for landlords and buy to let, including specialist schemes for hard to insure properties such as thatched homes, flat roofs, underpinned buildings and those at risk of flooding. For information call the Flux household insurance hotline on 08700 772266, email household@adrianflux.co.uk or visit the website, www.adrianflux.co.uk, and click on the relevant button under the 'Home Insurance' section.

Beginers guide to landlord insurance

Are you new to being a landlord? Have you recently invested in a buy-to-let property? Or perhaps you have had the luck to inherit a property and now you plan to find tenants for it.


Whichever category you fall into you will need to sort yourself out some landlord insurance.


Landlord insurance is essential to protect your property asset and apart from understanding what type of cover you should expect from your landlord insurance policy you will also want to find a cheap landlord insurance provider if possible. Choosing a landlord insurance by implication this means that your property has or is about to be rented out. This policy is to protect your asset and it is advisable to foresee all the possible worst case scenarios when investing in your policy. Sometimes landlord insurance is also described as buy-to-let insurance.

The first type of landlord insurance policy is normally based on a standard building insurance cover. A landlord will also find that there a number of additional levels of cover which can come under the umbrella term of landlord insurance.

These include:
1. landlord building insurance
2. landlord contents insurance
3. landlord legal expenses insurance
4. rent guarantee insurance
5. emergency assistance cover

Before letting out your property you will need to comply with the obligations of a landlord buy-to -let insurance, so make sure you know and adhere to any restrictions within the landlord insurance policy. Under the Housing Act 1988 you as the landlord are responsible for the upkeep of the structural aspects of the building, the installations and services provided. This includes water, gas, electricity, sanitation, water heating systems etc. When choosing your landlord insurance policy you will see that there are three general categories of tenant which are:

1. Professional/working/retired
2. Students
3. DSS

The kind of landlord insuranc cover a landlord should be looking for from a reputable landlord insurance broker should include:

1. All types of tenants to be accepted
2. Property owners liablity of up to as much as 5 million
3. Full accidental damage included
4. Terrorism cover also included
5. Loss of rent cover to be included
6. Employers liability should be included.

The kind of damages included in cover would be fire, smoke, lightening, wind, explosions, damage from vehicles or aircrafts. Landlords should insure that they also protect themselves against any personal liability that they may liable for thereby protecting them as the landlord from lawsuits if an individual is injured on your property. This is very important when you have tenants and even though they may seem quiet, they may not be. But one way or the other accidents can happen. Make sure you as the landlord understand all the implications before choosing and read the details in the landlord insurance policy a few times in order to give yourself the chance to spot any missing areas before purchasing the landlord insurance policy.

Landlords are exposing themselves to unecessary risk according to Landlord Insurance Company.

Residential landlords are leaving themselves at risk by failing to take out adequate landlord insurance cover for their letting business according to research from Redbrick Landlords Insurance.

Redbrick, a division of The Paragon Group of Companies, found that only 67% of landlords have specialist buildings cover for their buy-to-let investments, while only 12% have combined legal expenses and rent guarantee insurance, even though 71% of landlords expect tenant arrears to increase in 2009.

Tony Armitage, Redbrick Landlords Insurance’s director, said: “Landlords need to carefully consider their insurance needs and ensure that they are properly protected. It is amazing that only two thirds of landlords have specialist buildings insurance, with the other third presumably having a standard household policy or, worryingly, no insurance at all.

“In addition, tenant arrears are on the increase and landlords can easily cover themselves for rent arrears through a rent guarantee insurance product, which also includes the legal expenses involved in evicting the tenant. There appears to be a lack of awareness about the availability of these products and in the current environment landlords should be doing all they can to protect themselves.

“Buy-to-let landlords have sophisticated insurance requirements for which a typical household policy is often unsuitable. The biggest irony is that some landlords are actually paying through the nose for potentially unsuitable cover.”