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.