Guarantor insurance for joint and several liability

blakey68

Does anyone have experience (good or bad) of taking out insurance to cover joint and several liability as guarantor for student accommodation?

theartfullodger

Anyone?  Probably some do.

If you go with it read the conditions very carefully.  Twice.  There are frequently postings from landlords surprised to find no payout...

eddddy

theartfullodger said:

If you go with it read the conditions very carefully.  Twice.  There are frequently postings from landlords surprised to find no payout...

I don't think the OP is asking from a Landlord's perspective.

I think the OP is talking about a situation where a parent acts as a guarantor for their son's/daughter's shared tenancy in a student house.

The parent can take out an insurance policy against having to pay out as a guarantor, if the son's/daughter's housemates don't pay their rent or don't pay their share of the damage.


(These policies sound a little dubious to me, but that's based on very little evidence.)

canaldumidi

eddddy said:

theartfullodger said:

If you go with it read the conditions very carefully.  Twice.  There are frequently postings from landlords surprised to find no payout...

I don't think the OP is asking from a Landlord's perspective.

I think the OP is talking about a situation where a parent acts as a guarantor for their son's/daughter's shared tenancy in a student house.

The parent can take out an insurance policy against having to pay out as a guarantor, if the son's/daughter's housemates don't pay their rent or don't pay their share of the damage.

I've never heard of such a policy but would be interested to hear if they exist, and if so I'd be interested in the policy terms.

Link?

Thrugelmir

Not the type of insurance you are going to obtain off the shelf by answering a few questions. The underwriters would need to satisfy themselves on a number of counts. All would add to the cost. 

eddddy

canaldumidi said:

I've never heard of such a policy but would be interested to hear if they exist, and if so I'd be interested in the policy terms.

Link?

I'm not really very comfortable about providing a link, because:

• It seems that only one company offer this type of insurance, and I don't know anything about them

• Does it sound a bit "too good to be true"?

(Is it just a clever marketing ploy that plays on parents fears? Panicking parents scared at the prospect of being liable for unpaid rent and damage by 6 of your child's friends, who they might never have met? But in reality the insurance isn't very good?

Maybe a bit like Home Buyers Protection insurance - which plays on home buyers fears. People buy it because they are scared of losing thousands of pounds if a purchase falls through. But in reality, the policies almost never pay out.)

• Lots of positive Trust Pilot reviews - but all referring to buying a policy, I couldn't see any referring to making a claim.

(In the past, I've seen a number of dodgy insurance companies encourage all their customers to write reviews about how easy it was to take out a policy, so that those reviews 'drown out' the reviews about how difficult it is to make a claim.)


Also, having read the policy a couple of times, I'm not really clear what it covers. 

I think it seems to cover your legal expenses for suing your child's housemate for unpaid rent and damage - but only if their advisers say that suing your child's housemate has "reasonable prospects of success".

Maybe others can clarify.


Anyway, all the above are just my general opinions based on my knowledge of other companies - I know absolutely nothing about the company in question.

But if you've got this far, here is the link:  https://www.guarantorinsure.co.uk/
The policy wording:  https://www.guarantorinsure.co.uk/shared/documents/GuarantorInsurePolicyWording_V10_Feb21.pdf