{"id":22252,"date":"2020-06-08T11:57:04","date_gmt":"2020-06-08T11:57:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thehouseshop.com\/property-blog\/?p=22252"},"modified":"2022-09-19T09:57:42","modified_gmt":"2022-09-19T09:57:42","slug":"five-things-to-know-about-landlord-insurance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thehouseshop.com\/property-blog\/five-things-to-know-about-landlord-insurance\/","title":{"rendered":"Five things to know about landlord insurance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<!-- SEO Ultimate Plus (https:\/\/seoultimateplus.com) - Code Inserter module -->\n<script async>(function(s,u,m,o,j,v){j=u.createElement(m);v=u.getElementsByTagName(m)[0];j.async=1;j.src=o;j.dataset.sumoSiteId='b68b392479b5981b8acf46565e9fe32a0734fc21a1f7c1e60121eaa6ca1a1c64';v.parentNode.insertBefore(j,v)})(window,document,'script','\/\/load.sumo.com\/');<\/script>\n<!-- \/SEO Ultimate Plus -->\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Landlord insurance is essentially an upgrade to traditional house insurance that accounts for the insurer&#8217;s additional risk in having tenants on your property.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It may not provide more than standard building insurance, which most people have on a property (and most mortgage companies insist upon) to cover any structural issue that may arise.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In other cases, landlord insurance will also provide additional cover for the policyholder to consider other risks they may be exposed to due to renting out a property.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We\u2019ve taken a look at five key things to know about landlord insurance:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Landlord insurance is not obligatory<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is not a legal requirement to take out landlord insurance, though some mortgage lenders will make it a requirement of a buy-to-let loan.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mortgage providers will know your ability to make repayments on a buy-to-let property is likely linked to your ability to keep paying tenants in the property.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Specific landlord insurance policies will cover the lost earnings if the property becomes damaged and can\u2019t be rented for a period if you have a gap between tenants or your tenants fail to pay rent.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>There are vastly varying degrees of cover<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As with most forms of insurance, there are many different degrees of cover with landlord insurance and it&#8217;s vital to ensure you buy what you need.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehouseshop.com\/landlord-insurance\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Landlord insurance<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> may or may not include any combination of these types of cover:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Buildings &#8211; protecting the structure and fitted fixtures within the building<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Contents &#8211; insurance for belongings in the building as well as items such as carpets and curtains<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Unoccupied property &#8211; offering payments if you have a gap between paying tenants\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Liability &#8211; to assist with costs if there is a legal dispute over the property<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Rental protection &#8211; offering payments if the building cannot be rented for a period due to, for example, structural damage.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Accidental damage &#8211; potentially offering cover for things like broken windows, damage due to DIY or carpet stains due to spills.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span><a href=\"https:\/\/mashroom.com\/services\/home-emergency\">Home Emergency<\/a> &#8211; cover unforeseen situations like boiler breakdown and much more<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It may be necessary to upgrade general housing insurance to ensure you\u2019re still covered as a landlord<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While landlord insurance is not obligatory, it is usually necessary to inform your house insurance provider if you rent a property or room.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehouseshop.com\/property-to-rent\" title=\"rental property\">rental property<\/a> with a tenant will often be seen as a higher risk than an owner-occupied one. Therefore your insurance provider may deem that your premium needs to be recalculated.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The risk is inflated because tenants may not take as much care of the property.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>The type of tenants you have will affect your premium<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">An insurer is very likely to ask for information about the type of tenant who will be living in the property, and the answer may affect the premium.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Suppose you intend to rent to students or people on benefits, for example. In that case, the landlord insurance premium may be higher, especially if you seek cover for periods where tenants fail to pay. These low-income groups may be seen as presenting a higher risk.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Failure to provide working smoke alarms could invalidate the policy<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Failing to meet <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/renting-out-a-property\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">statutory landlord responsibilities<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> when renting a property, such as providing <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fireservice.co.uk\/safety\/smoke-alarms\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">smoke alarms<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, could invalidate your insurance.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A professional may also need to regularly check gas and electric items within the property.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n<h6><span style=\"color: #999999;\">Ref: 3021.26486<\/span><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Landlord insurance is essentially an upgrade to traditional house insurance that accounts for the insurer&#8217;s additional risk in having tenants on your property. It may not provide more than standard building insurance, which most people have on a property (and<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehouseshop.com\/property-blog\/five-things-to-know-about-landlord-insurance\/\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":20189,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wl_entities_gutenberg":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","spay_email":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"wl_entity_type":[602],"modified_by":"Editor","_wl_alt_label":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.thehouseshop.com\/property-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/landlord.jpg","wl:entity_url":"http:\/\/data.wordlift.io\/wl0502\/post\/five_things_to_know_about_landlord_insurance","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thehouseshop.com\/property-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22252"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thehouseshop.com\/property-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thehouseshop.com\/property-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thehouseshop.com\/property-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thehouseshop.com\/property-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22252"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.thehouseshop.com\/property-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28154,"href":"https:\/\/www.thehouseshop.com\/property-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22252\/revisions\/28154"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thehouseshop.com\/property-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thehouseshop.com\/property-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thehouseshop.com\/property-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thehouseshop.com\/property-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22252"},{"taxonomy":"wl_entity_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thehouseshop.com\/property-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wl_entity_type?post=22252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}