Landlords Insurance

hkw1

Hello everyone

Just looking for a bit of advice. I'm about to move and will be letting my property. My buildings insurance is arranged by the management company of our flats. I need to arrange contents insurance for the bits and pieces that I'm leaving. Does anyone have any thoughts on who's the best to use? I currently have my contents insurance with direct line but when I rang them last week they said they couldn't do it. Also, I paid for my contents insurance in August but want to move it to cover my new address - do I need to cancel it and start again (sorry for all the questions - I'm not too sure when it comes to insurance!).

Thanks!
H

rhartley

Hello everyone

Just looking for a bit of advice.  I'm about to move and will be letting my property.  My buildings insurance is arranged by the management company of our flats.  I need to arrange contents insurance for the bits and pieces that I'm leaving.  Does anyone have any thoughts on who's the best to use?  I currently have my contents insurance with direct line but when I rang them last week they said they couldn't do it.  Also, I paid for my contents insurance in August but want to move it to cover my new address - do I need to cancel it and start again (sorry for all the questions - I'm not too sure when it comes to insurance!).

Thanks!
H

There are plenty of insurers that will agree to cover your contents when the home is let. Some will do so on a standard household policy but will apply cover restrictions. For example, theft of contents without any sign of violent and forcible entry will generally be excluded due to the fact that you cannot control who comes in and out of the home. And most insurers don't want to cover malicious damage by a tenant or accidental damage. If you do opt for a standard household policy, you must make sure that the insurer knows that the house is being let out, otherwise the cover may be invalidated.

If you pick a specialist policy designed for landlords then you can generally obtain wider cover (for example, it may include cover for malicious damage by the tenant). The downside with the specialist policies is that your policy excess will most probably be higher (e.g. £250 for any claim) because these polices are really commercial insurances. If you are leaving relatively little in the flat then you'll need a policy with a low minimum premium too. These policies do exist and you can get cover for say £10,000 of contents for a let property for about £50 a year. You might also want to think about cover for loss of rent. Around £20 a year will protect £10,000 worth of lost rent in the event that the flat is damaged and cannot be let.

You should be able to transfer your existing contents policy to the new address with no trouble. If you are contemplating cancelling it, make sure you first check what the cancellation refund will be.

Good luck with the move!

Dan29

These policies do exist and you can get cover for say £10,000 of contents for a let property for about £50 a year.

Really? Where?

dougk_2

For example:

https://www.landlords-insurance.com

and

https://www.homelet.com/

Hope that helps

Dan29

Thanks, will have a look - although I'm with Homelet at the moment and am paying over £200 a year >:(

rhartley

Really? Where?

The Homelet site mentioned above lets you pick "limited contents cover" which seems to be for £5000 of cover and the cost in the postcode area I tried was £63 a year.

Limited contents cover is described as "... up to £5,000 cover for the following items: Carpets, Curtains, Sun Blinds, Light Fixtures & Fittings and Kitchen White Goods." The cover is on a new for old basis and also includes Employer’s liability (£10,000,000) and Landlord’s liability (£5,000,000)

You can get the same £5000 of cover (and the liabilities) through a landlords association scheme for £23.65 a year from Alan Boswell Insurance:

http://www.alanboswell.co.uk/landlords_insurance/onlinequote.aspx

If any one else knows of any one offering a better deal, I'd be pleased to have the details.

Dan29

Sounds good, I'll investigate further - although it sounds as if you're lucky enough to be in a low risk postcode area

rhartley

The Alan Boswell Scheme I referred to has the same contents rate across the whole of the UK mainland:  £4.72 per £1000 insured. So the postcode doesn't matter in that example.

However, you do have to be a member of a landlords association to qualify. In this example, the National Landlords Association.