Landlord insurance
Peace of mind for landlords
Homes come in all shapes and sizes – and so does our landlord insurance. Protect your property against risks like fire, flood, theft and malicious damage. Get a landlord insurance quote today.
What does landlord insurance cover?
Landlord insurance protects your residential or commercial property against certain risks. These will vary depending on what type of property you're insuring, but can include:
Landlord building insurance
Cover for your property's structure against specific risks (an insured event such as fire, theft and flood).
Landlord contents insurance
Cover for certain items that you provide your tenants with (like furniture and white goods).
Property owners' liability
Legal liability protection for personal injury or property damage experienced by third parties.
Periods of unoccupancy
Cover for specific periods of unoccupancy – depending on what type of cover you have.
What is landlord insurance?
Landlord insurance in the UK will provide cover to protect your property (buildings, contents or both) against a range of risks, such as fire, flood, theft and malicious damage.
While this cover isn't compulsory by law, it may be a requirement of your mortgage provider to make sure you have landlord buildings insurance in place. If you own any rental property, it's important to make sure that you're fully protected.
Your frequently asked questions
Not sure whether you need a landlord insurance policy? We’ve pulled together some frequently asked questions to help you decide.
What does landlord insurance cover in the UK?
From landlord building and contents insurance, to different liability covers, Endsleigh has a lot to offer. Our residential landlord insurance will provide cover for:
- The cost for repairing or rebuilding your property, including garages, outbuildings, walls, gates, fences and patios, up to £1,000,000
- Property owners’ liability up to £5,000,000 for bodily injury to any person by accident
- Accidental damage to property
- Employer’s liability insurance up to £5,000,000
- Malicious damage by the tenant or their guests up to £25,000
- Up to 30% of the sum insured for loss of rent and up to £3,000 for alternative accommodation
- Up to £7,500 trace and access cover
- You can also choose to add useful covers to your insurance policy, such as home emergency or landlord legal cover to support with legal costs.
- Contents cover to protect items such as carpets, curtains, furniture, household utensils, kitchen electrical goods and soft furnishings - against a number of different risks. A single article limit of £2,500 applies and you cannot insure personal items or valuables or any items belonging to your tenants
- Please read your insurance policy documents for full details.
What’s not covered?
We are unable to provide the following covers under our residential policy:
Wear and tear or costs for maintenance
Storm damage to gates, fences and hedges
Pet damage (although we can provide cover for this with our landlord pet damage insurance)
Your tenants’ belongings
Your excess, as stated on your insurance policy documents
Please read your insurance policy documents for full details.
What's optional?
You can also choose to enhance your cover with optional add-ons. These include:
- Home emergency cover - including protection against incidents like burst pipes, roof damage and boiler breakdown.
- Legal expenses cover - to provide legal representation for unexpected legal expenses.
Do I need landlord insurance legally?
If you have a mortgage, your provider will usually require you to have buildings protection in place. Simple home insurance likely won’t cover rental activities, so securing the right landlord insurance policy is important.
Even if you don't have a mortgage, it’s sensible to protect your property - although it isn't a legal requirement. As a landlord, you are responsible for any damage to your properties - whether you have insurance in place or not. Landlord insurance provides protection for risks involved with owning a rental property (like accidental or malicious damage by tenants, or cover for an empty property).
Who pays for building insurance, the landlord or tenant?
It is the responsibility of the landlord to have buildings insurance in place. It’s not legally required, but if you have an outstanding mortgage, it may be a condition of your mortgage provider.
What happens if my property is damaged and I don’t have buildings cover?
As a landlord, you are responsible for repairing any damage to your properties – whether you have buildings protection or not. You’re responsible for your property structure and exterior of the building along with areas like plumbing, sinks, baths and toilets, electrical work, water and central heating, water and gas pipes and more.
What type of landlord insurance do I need?
While buying rental properties can be a great investment, those who are new to being a landlord don’t always realise that they may need landlord insurance to protect their properties. Luckily, there are many insurance options available to landlords to protect their let properties and their rental income.
The type of landlord insurance you need for your rental properties will depend on a number of factors, including:
- What type of property are you renting? For example, is it a single residential property, or a block of flats?
- How many properties do you own? If you’re insuring multiple let properties, portfolio insurance may prove cost-effective. But if you're a buy to let landlord with a single property, your requirements may be different.
- Who are your tenants? If you’re renting to students you may want to consider specialist cover for student landlords.
- Will the property be unoccupied? If it will be unoccupied long term, you may want to consider unoccupied property insurance.
- Is it a permanent or temporary let? Is there an assured tenancy agreement in place, or are you renting it out as a holiday home? As part of Howden, our holiday home insurance will provide essential buildings insurance protection for your holiday or second home, including properties let through agencies such as Airbnb.
- Is it being let furnished or unfurnished? This will tell you whether you need contents insurance as well as cover for the buildings.
What types of property do Endsleigh cover?
At Endsleigh, we pride ourselves on the competitive and flexible nature of our policies. We can cover:
Residential properties
A residential rental property is normally a house, flat or maisonette rented out to a tenant under a tenancy agreement. These types of properties could be let to students, non-students, families, professionals and so on.
Multiple properties or mixed portfolio
Do you have multiple residential or commercial properties, a mixed portfolio of both, or a single property which is let to both residential and commercial tenants (such as flats above a shop)? If so, it could pay to insure them under one policy.
Commercial properties
Commercial rental properties are let to commercial tenants for business purposes. Commercial premises are used by many different types of businesses and vary in size from shops and restaurants to leisure centres and factories.
What is commercial property insurance?
Non-standard properties
Non-standard rental properties are specialist rentals such as holiday homes, buildings of a non-standard construction or unoccupied properties. Rental properties that are affected by subsidence or liable to flooding are also likely to require specialist insurance.
As part of Howden, we can provide:
Listed and period property insurance
Blocks of flats
If, as a landlord or management company, you own all of the flats or apartments within a single block or complex, you may wish to insure them on a single policy. You can get buildings insurance for flats plus other elements of cover - this will ease the burden of admin and could mean you get better value for money.
How can I save money on my landlord insurance?
There are a lot of up-front costs to take care of when you become a landlord, which could include anything from letting and managing agent fees to the price of property maintenance. Not to mention your mortgage (if you have one). So, you’ll likely to want to save money wherever possible – including on your cost of insurance.
To help you out, we’ve pulled together five simple tips that could help reduce the price of your landlord cover when getting quotes from landlord insurance companies in the UK:
1. Increase your excess
Opting for a higher buildings or contents excess could ultimately reduce the price of your landlord cover – you’ll just need to make sure the excess is set at an amount you’re comfortable paying in the event of a claim.
2. Make sure your rebuild is accurate
It can be easy to over-insure, but unfortunately this can increase the price of your insurance. This is why it’s important to get the rebuild right for your properties. You can find out more about calculating your rebuild here.
3. Consider whether you need portfolio insurance
If you’re renting out multiple properties, you could get a cheaper deal by taking out multi-property insurance – not only that, but it’ll save a lot of time on the paperwork!
4. Avoid unnecessary cover
Think carefully about the protection you actually need for your property. For example, if the property is being let unfurnished you may not require cover for contents.
5. Paying monthly VS paying annually
While paying in monthly instalments is a great way to spread the cost of your insurance, you may pay slightly more to do so. So it’s worth considering whether you would prefer to pay annually to cut down your landlord insurance cost.
Landlord insurance VS home insurance
Is there a difference between landlord insurance and homeowners' insurance?
Yes, there is. The principles are similar as both covers provide protection against risks associated with damage to a building/its contents. However, there are some key differences that are centred around the fact that landlords receive a rental income through their property and have a responsibility to their tenants.
Home insurance would unlikely cover you if your property was let out to tenants. Landlord insurance provides some crucial additional protection like:
- Protection against loss of rent
- Property owners’ liability insurance
- Alternative accommodation
- Protection for landlord’s contents
When to buy landlord insurance
It’s a sensible idea to get covered as soon as possible once you’re responsible for a rental property – to make sure you’re always covered against the key risks associated with renting to tenants.
If you have a mortgage, your mortgage provider may require you to have buildings insurance in place from the start of your agreement. In this case, buildings insurance is included with landlord insurance, so the sooner you get your cover in place, the better.
A building valuation will provide an accurate reinstatement cost for your property giving you the information you need to request the right amount of cover from your broker.
BCH is a RICS-regulated company that provides building insurance rebuilding cost valuations via desk-based e-valuations or site-based reinstatement cost assessments (RCA).
Find out more about building insurance valuation services today.
Explore our landlord guides
From the different types of landlord insurance to a property maintenance checklist, see what our guides have to offer.
What types of landlord insurance are there?
From buildings, to contents, to multiple property, join us as we find out about the different types of cover.
Property maintenance checklist
Not sure where to start to maintain your property? Our maintenance checklist has the information to keep your property in great shape.
Can I insure multiple properties on one landlord insurance policy?
Do you have more than one property and are looking to find out more about multi-property insurance? Check out our guide.
How to prepare your property for student tenants
Getting ready to rent to students? Check out our checklist for preparing your property for students to help you get prepared.
Other types of landlord insurance
Cover for multi-property landlords
Find out more about landlord multi-property insurance.
Cover for landlords of specialist properties
Find out more about specialist insurance for landlords.
Cover for landlords who allow pets
Find out more about pet damage insurance for landlords.
Need to contact us?
Our friendly team are ready to talk to you:
Monday-Friday: 9am-5pm; Saturday & Sunday: Closed