Rental Protection Insurance

Bigun28

Hi

What do other landlords do with regards to Rental Protection Insurance? Do you have it as a stand alone policy (I currently have policies with Letsure) or do you incorperate it in a Landlords Buildings Insurance policy, where I have seen quotes of "20-30% of the sum insured used to cover rent ............".

I'm currently trying to renew my buildings insurance and came across a company called CIA Insurance Services Ltd via MoneySupermarket and they are quoteing me a stand alone Rental Protection Policy for about half that that Letsure charge.

Anyone used CIA in the past?

Many thanks.

Bigun28

Anyone???

rs1969_2

I would like to know the answer to this one as well. Are CIA a good broker for landlord insurance?

rs1969_2

One of the quotes I had from CIA was with Rentguard insurance underwritten by AXA. Seen lots of negative feedback about Rentguard on the internet.

I also got a quote from rentguard.co.uk to compare the one from CIA. Their customer service is very poor. The email address for customer services (support@rentguard.co.uk) mentioned on their website is invalid. How can anyone trust such a company?

I eventually went with Direct Line landlord's insurance, one of the most reputed companies in the UK by far. There is no hassle of dealing with brokers as you deal with them directly and their quotes are competitive as well. I am not sure if Direct Line do Rental Protection insurance though.

JoannaKay

I'm interested in the answer too. BTW, I'm new to the forum

bubblesmoney

i am not a LL but from my friends experiences as a LL with a defaulting tenant who refused to vacate the property and running around the courts to get the person evicted, it would be best to take the rental insurance to cover losses. my friend was living in the property but later due to career moves had to let the property via a letting management agency. he almost lost his house as he had to pay his own rent elsewhere, plus pay fees to management agency without gettng rent for more than 6m plus additional court expenses twice, once for eviction then another tie for recovery of losses, plus couldnt let out the property due to damage to property caused by tenaNT and needed more than 20k repairs. to avoid such problems best to get a insurance that covers most of these possibilities. his insurer didnt tell him earlier that he could have the rental insurance as well for just 5£ more a month. this time around he has taken that additional insurance. but apparently the rental insurance varies depending on the creditworthiness of the tenant according to what my friend was told by his insurer and that the rental insurance premium would vary everytime the tenant changed depending on their credit worthiness. i dont know which company he gets his insurance from. so hope people choose tenants with better credit worthiness to decrease their own insurance costs. also best for the owner to pay the insurance by direct debit instead of making the tenant pay it in the rental agreement. if the tenant is supposed to pay it monthly and defaults on both the rent and the insurance then the LL gets screwed instead. so best for the LL to pay this particular insurance.

DawnW

I have rental cover in with buildings / landlord insurance from Legal and General. It is not the most competitive (I don't think) and I will review it when it comes up for renewal, but the cover is pretty comprehensive and it came recommended. The National Landlords Association also offer provision through a company that they recommend. Might be worth following up either of these / getting a quote. Hope this helps.

JoannaKay

A friend suggested I go with Let's Cover landlord insurance. I'd be grateful for some feeback on what they offer because I'm new to being a Landlord and want to get it right.

Is landlord insurance compulsory?

mrtwister76

I would certainly make sure you have buildings insurance as a minimum.

karenj

We used an agent to rent our property and they offered rental protection insurance. However, if the tenant has CCJs then they cannot offer this insurance. A situation arose last year where the tenant was in arrears and we had no 'rental protection insurance' through the letting agent, so thought we would lose the rent owed. HOWEVER - when I read through my policy for the landlord's insurance, lo and behold, I was covered for non payment of rent, up to a value, I think of around £25,000 which included court order charges, court fees, soliticors fees, so I was stumped! We hadn't lost our rent! So we decided to take this further and issue a court order through the solicitor of the insurance company for non payment of rent, but guess what - she paid up! So, no excess fees for next year's premium and very, very helpful lady throughout the process. So, if you rent through an agency, check your landlord insurance policy. We were paying over the odds for years, not realising that the policy covered us for non payment of rent! So annoyed about it all!

BTW, landlord insurance is in your best interest and is usually a prerequesite of the lender who grants permission to rent the property.

Hope this helps.

silvercar

For building insurance, I found alanboswell.com cheaper than directlineforbusiness. Their claims handling is efficient too.