Is it time for your landlord insurance review?

If you ask when might be the time for a landlord insurance review, the answer is likely to be summed up in just one word – regularly. Not only might your circumstances and those of your buy to let property change, so too might the range of different insurance options available to you in the market.

When you arranged your insurance it was likely to have been to protect your investment in the buy to let property you bought, the contents you installed in it and the obligations and responsibilities you took on as a landlord. So, what might have changed?

Your property

A core component of your cover is typically the buildings insurance to protect the structure and fabric of the property itself against such major perils as fire, flooding, storm damage, impacts and falling objects. It is important that the total sum insured under this heading is sufficient to completely rebuild the premises in the event of a major disaster.

The reason for a regular landlord insurance review, therefore, is to ensure that the valuation of the property, together with its current estimated rebuilding cost, is kept thoroughly up to date. If reconstruction costs have risen and you remain under-insured, of course, you may find it impossible to replace your investment.

Your contents

Similarly, time is unlikely to have stood still when it comes to any equipment, furniture, furnishings or fittings you have installed in your letting. However careful you might have been when first drawing up an inventory of the contents you owned, this may become increasingly obsolete as new items are added or old ones replaced.

A regular landlord insurance review may help you to ensure that all of the contents remain adequately insured and in a position to replace any items lost or damaged under the insured risks.

Your business

There might also have been changes that reflect more subtly on your buy to let landlord insurance.

Perhaps your tenants are now more regularly drawn from a population of students, benefits claimants, or new arrivals to the UK, for example. You may wish to review whether your insurance continues to accept tenancies from these groups of potential customers.

You might have become more worried about the risk of malicious damage caused to your property by your tenants. Did you know that some buy to let landlord insurance policies include cover for such malicious damage as a standard feature? It may be reason enough for you to change insurers.

If you anticipate gaps of over 30 days (or 45 days with some insurance providers) between tenant handovers, when the property is going to be standing empty, you may wish to consider the safeguard of unoccupied insurance.

If your buy to let business is flourishing and you have come to depend on the income it generates, you might want to ensure that your current insurance offers an element of compensation for lost rental income in the event of one of the insured risks making the premises temporarily untenantable. Although there are likely to be limits to the amount of compensation you may be able to claim, a landlord insurance review might reveal that some policies include such protection as standard.