Buy to let insurance provides financial protection for your property if it is not your main residence and is rented out to tenants.
Landlord insurance and buy to let insurance are the same thing. Essentially this is buildings (and sometimes contents) insurance that covers a property that you do not live in, regardless of whether you charge rent – so you would need buy to let insurance even if a relative or child of yours was living in the property rent-free.
On the other hand, standard home insurance is unlikely to cover you in the event of a claim if your property is a buy to let, or otherwise rented out.
If you are purchasing a buy-to-let property with a mortgage then buy to let home insurance is probably a requirement of your lender. The lender may also want to be noted as an interested party on the insurance documentation.
You can get buy to let insurance today with Emerald Life. We offer comprehensive buildings cover as well as landlord contents insurance and property owner liability cover. We can cover all sorts of properties and tenants including HMOs and blocks of flats, students and tenants on benefits.
Simply go through our fast online quote form and get a quote now.
Building Insurance For Buy to Let Properties
The most important part of buy to let insurance is the buildings cover.
This should cover how much it would cost to rebuild your property if it were completely destroyed. The rebuild value is not the same as the market value so it is worth checking.
You can find your rebuild value through different methods. It may be on the deed of your property if you have recently bought it. You can also get a professional estimate.
A lot of customers opt for an estimate generated by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors’ online calculator tool. You can find that here, although note that you will only have a limited number of free attempts.
While you should insure to the full value of your rebuild cost, smaller claims for damage to the structure of the building are also covered by this buy to let building insurance total.
Buy To Let Contents Insurance
Contents insurance can be a little complicated with buy to let insurance. Landlord contents insurance provides cover for your own possessions in the home – normally things like appliances, curtains and carpets.
If you have made the property more homely for your tenants then you probably do have a reasonable amount of contents there to cover. In general though the amount of contents cover is probably going to be a lot less than for your own home. At Emerald Life we provide £5000 of landlord contents cover free.
As for contents belonging to your tenants, these are not covered by your policy and they should look into getting their own contents insurance if needed.
Landlord Liability Insurance
Legal cover is an important aspect of any home insurance, and buy to let house insurance is no exception. In particular, property owner liability cover can help with legal costs in the event that your property causes harm and you end up in a lawsuit.
Accidents happen and if you are at fault as owner of a property then you could be liable.
Although such claims are quite rare, with buy to let property the risk is higher as you are not at the property. Meanwhile other people are – and with guests and contractors coming and going.
Most good buy to let insurance policies include some liability cover and with Emerald Life £2 million of cover is provided as standard, but if you wish you can upgrade to £5 million for a slightly increased premium.