What does landlord property insurance cover?
As with standard home insurance, landlord insurance covers your rental property against events such as fire, burst pipes, and storm damage. However, landlord building insurance may also cover accidental or deliberate damage, vandalism, the cost of evicting squatters, and loss or theft of keys.
You can also add other clauses to make your insurance portfolio more comprehensive, including:
- Loss of rental income – If the property is damaged and you are unable to rent it out
- Legal expenses – including costs incurred when evicting tenants or squatters
- Empty periods between tenants – If your rental property is empty for a prolonged period (bear in mind that there may be a clause that requires you to carry out maintenance regularly to empty properties, usually every 14 days if a property is vacant)
- Public liability cover
- Boiler repair
What isn't covered
Some things are not covered by landlord liability insurance, including
- Claims as a result of poor or negligible maintenance
- Deliberate damage by the insured person (the landlord)
- Existing damage – this includes damage to the property that occurred before the landlord's property policy was taken out