There are a number of insurance issues to consider in
relation to a buy to let property, the main areas are buildings insurance,
contents insurance and legal expenses insurance, each of these are discussed
below.
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This type of buy to let insurance covers a wide range
of issues related to the physical property itself. When taking out buildings
insurance be sure that you are insuring for the re-building cost of the
property and not simply the market value, as these two values often do
not tally and you could stand to loose out if the market value of your
buy to let is less than the cost to re-build should the worst happen.
In order to take out buildings insurance covering the re-build cost you
will need to have this cost calculated by a chartered surveyor, although
some insurance companies will carry this out on your behalf, the insurance
company will index link the cover to take into account any rises in building
costs year on year.
Your ability to obtain buy to let insurance for the building may be affected
by the type of tenants that you have, students and people on benefit are
considered to be high risk, and you might have to pay a higher insurance
premium if you rent to people in these groups.
Employers and owners liability are usually included with the buildings
insurance, these cover injuries that may occur to people working at the
premises (such as a decorator, plumber etc), and other visitors such as
the postman and meter readers respectively.
Insured events is the term used to describe all other areas that are covered
by the policy, these should cover such things as fire and flood damage,
lighting, theft and particular to buy to let insurance malicious damage
in case a tenant causes deliberate damage to the property and its fixtures
and fittings.
Contents Insurance
As its name suggests, this type of policy covers the
contents of the property – it should be noted that it covers only
the policy holders contents not those of the tenant. With an unfurnished
property this will generally be low cost and only cover around £5000
of items, such as carpets, curtains, kitchen equipment and so on. If you
have a fully furnished property you will need to increase the coverage
to full contents cover in order to take into account the re-purchase cost
of the items in the property.
Most contents insurance policies for buy to let properties will include
landlords liability insurance, which covers the landlord in the event
of someone sustaining injury arising from any of the items in the property,
such as tripping over a loose carpet. This can be a very important aspect
of the policy, particularly with the currently rising levels of litigation
being taken against landlords as a result of the recent ‘no win
no fee’ compensation claims approach.
Legal Expenses Insurance
Although hopefully something that you will never have
a need for, there are cases where a tenant refuses to vacate a property
at the end of the rental agreement, resolution of these cases usually
required court intervention which carries with it the associated legal
costs.
Legal expenses cover for your buy to let property will pay the solicitor,
court and bailiff costs and other such expenses should you be in a position
where you need to force the eviction of a tenant through the courts.
Making sure that you and your buy to let property are fully insured is
important, as the costs of the events insured against are potentially
large, you should check with specialist insurers to find out what levels
of cover you need, to help you to this end, see this list of insurance
companies.