Building insurance for landlord

 Any business wishes to minimise its risks and landlords are no exception to this. For landlords, there is always the possibility that their building will suffer damage – perhaps even rendering it uninhabitable for a period. To avoid this being a major financial blow, good building insurance for landlord is often seen as being critically important.

 Building insurance for landlord can be a complicated subject and specialist advice from an expert provider of landlord insurance may be required. That’s because there are a number of factors that the landlord needs to consider. These include whether the building is used for commercial or residential letting (or both)? Does it stand empty for periods of time? Is it in use or under renovations/restoration?

 It is then necessary to consider what the risks are. Property can be damaged in natural or man-made accidents. Sadly, tenants and other third parties can also maliciously damage a rented property and today it is also necessary to think about the risks of terrorism.

 All of these factors can affect the type of policy required and the cost. At the same time as thinking about building insurance for landlord, it may also be advisable to consider what exactly is ‘the building’.  There can sometimes be grey areas between what is the building, a fixture/fitting and the landlord’s personal property/goods. It may therefore be sensible to consider a policy that covers both.

Landlord insurance

 There are a number of specialist and expert providers of landlord insurance. They will consider the individual circumstances of a landlord and make recommendations as to the insurance that will best suit their needs.

 Many landlords take out building insurance as part of a package of buy to let insurance that covers a broad range of risks including such things as third party liability cover. There is considerable flexibility here and single or multi-tenanted properties can be covered (commercial or residential) as can primary or secondary first homes being rented out. It is even possible to find policies that will allow a single flat in a block to be covered.

 The costs of this insurance is usually passed back to the tenant as part of their rent and this can avoid the sometimes difficult task of trying to persuade renters to consider their own insurance on the property.

 For landlords, it may be worth keeping in mind that normal ‘primary home’ buildings insurance will not usually cover a property being rented out even if only part of the building is so used. This is not something that will be amusing to discover for the first time following a claim and many insurance companies will take a dim view of any false declaration of use – it could make it difficult or impossible for the landlord to obtain future insurance on a property.