Whether you own commercial property or residential homes, landlord insurance is a must to protect you against the various problems that can arise. The range of cover on offer is extensive with everything from the basic level of protection through to policies that cover almost every eventuality. Nearly every bank is likely to insist you take out building insurance as a condition of a mortgage, particularly with buy-to-let mortgages. And, even if you do own a rented property outright, you’ll still want at least a basic level of cover to protect such a valuable asset. Your building insurance should be worth at least the rebuild value of the property and cover you against environmental damage (flood, storms, falling trees etc), subsidence, damage to any installations and vandalism. Landlord building insurance usually covers malicious damage by tenants too, but you should check any policy to be sure.
In addition to covering the building, you can protect yourself against a number of other things including loss of rent insurance. This covers the income you’ve lost if something happens to your property (such as fire or water damage) that makes it uninhabitable for the existing tenants forcing them to move out. This doesn’t cover you if your tenants simply default on rent payments, which is covered separately under tenant default insurance, also known as rent guarantee insurance. You may also want to add contents insurance to your policy, particularly if you are letting out a furnished property.