difference between 'owner' and 'occupier' house insurance liabilities

MarkTee

We are about to let a house for the first time and, not suprisingly, investigated insurance. Having (tried to..) investigated, we are now more basically confused about house insurance terminology!
Other than meeting legal obligations, we've always taken a position of only insuring what we can't handle financially if it happens. So, for houses this has (or so we thought) boiled-down to insuring buildings and associated third party liability (which is bundled-in): we've always given 'contents' a miss.
Now, reading carefully, our insurer (Saga) discriminates between 'owner's liability' (under 'buildings') and 'occupier's liability' (under 'contents'). I sense that 'owner's' relates to liability due to the structure of the building (tile falling off roof and hiting someone) as distinct from damage caused bythe contents (someone breaking a leg tripping over your chair). Can anyone confim this interpretation? If so, it sounds as if even in an 'unfurnished' let there is a risky area for 'in between items' like shower screens, stair carpets (tripping and falling down stairs..) etc.
If I'm correct (probably not....!) then it sounds as if rented property might be okay with just buildings (i.e. 'owners liability') if completely unfurnished, but it suggests that for your own home you must have 'buildings AND contents' to get full third party cover. If that's true, then surely hardly anyone would risk just 'buildings'?
Is there an issue here, or are we just confused over the difference between 'owners' and 'occupiers' liabilities?

Sally_A

All you need to worry about mark is Owners Liability, the 3 main sections you will need for letting are Buildings, Property Owners Liability, Loss of Rent.

Additionally if you have left any fittings in there such as carpets, free standing furniture, you may want landlords fixtures and fittings, would also recommend commercial legal expenses which should assist if you get any problems from tenants.

Occupiers liability is an extension of home contents insurance, it quite often includes liability for domestic pets, riding a bicycle, poking someones eye out with a brolly on a rainy shopping day; you get the gist.

When we let our house out prior to selling, we used Vasek, they also included Malicious Damage by tenants.

Sally_A

Doh! almost forgot, you will need to check with your mortgage co, if you have one, that they are OK with it. Quite frankly when I rang Halifax to advise them we were letting they were such drones "You may have to make an appointment with the local branch", I told them to stuff off, I've declared what I'm doing, the local branch has my number, and they can call me if there was a problem. Please pass on my notice that I am letting the property - never heard another peep off them, but took names and times of phone calls "just in case".

Boiler insurance, might be worth looking into, tenants have a tendancy to poke every button going, unscrew every tap, as they are confident in the knowledge it is the landlord's problem to sort out.