The attractions of cheap landlord building insurance

Typically every sensible landlord wants the protection of insurance and equally typically, every one will be looking for cheap landlord building insurance.

What is cheap?

While there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that as an inclination, do remember that cheap landlord building insurance might not necessarily mean the same thing to everyone.

Some people may just say that it’s the insurance that they can get away with paying the least for. That might be fine though it may also not seem the wisest choice of definition to run with in the event of a claim if the circumstances weren’t covered.

So, in essence, what may be a cheap policy for you may not be the cheapest for someone else. It depends on the level of cover you need and your perceptions as to what is cheap and what isn’t.

Perhaps a more balanced definition would be a policy that met all of your needs for a cost-effective price. Using that as a guideline for buy to rent insurance may help avoid ending up with something that’s unsuitable.

Covering your bases

Your needs for landlords’ insurance will depend upon your individual circumstances, however, a good landlord insurance policy may provide you with financial protection against:

• damage to the structure of your building;
• damage or destruction of your fixtures and fittings;
• ditto for the contents plus their theft;
• third party public liability claims;
• loss of rental income (where this arises from an insured risk);
• some forms of legal fees (again, if they relate to an insured risk).

Insured risk

Although in everyday language we may call potential problems of the above type risks, in the insurance industry they are often referred to as the perils.

Typically, in a landlords’ insurance policy, they may include things such as theft, storms, floods, fires and burglary etc.

The point about things such as legal cover and rental income loss is important.

Typically, a policy won’t always cover things such as tenants that depart suddenly leaving large rent arrears or tenants that you’re trying to evict. So if you incur legal expenses in either situation and/or an associated loss of rental income, your policy typically won’t cover it.

By contrast, legal fees incurred in defending a third party liability claim may be covered.

Finding the right cover

Knowing that you have suitable cover behind you may help you rest a little more easily at night. That’s why finding appropriate buy to let insurance is more important than simply thinking exclusively about cheap landlord building insurance.