We’re letting our flat out come November, so want to get everything squared away. Only thing is, no-one seems able to give us a quote for landlord’s insurance. Any ideas/tips/horror stories?

I get mine through Zurich .
Loss of income, Landlords Contents , malicious damage .
No horror stories , just lay down the law from the get go .

Think I did for first year.

Haven’t bothered for the last 5.

Just vet your tenants well.

I’ll give Zurich a try then. Thanks.

We know the tenant already, as it’s someone from The Flying Oxfrau’s work. Hopefully no problems there.

If you are brave enough to rent to a friend, why bother with insurance … 🙂

Ahh Ro5ey you are having a failure to understand, you need buildings insurance no matter what, and in the event of a fire/flood contents insurance is dead handy, as are loss of rent etc regardless of good vetting or friends.

I use SIS Direct who although they specialise as student/student landlord insurers they insure all types of landlords, and are very reasonable, and a small company so they tend to be uber helpful.

I think insurance is the way to go as well, seeing as we’re going to be out of the country as of mid-November. Wouldn’t like to be flying home to sort stuff out every time a tap started leaking.

I’ll see what SIS have to say as well.

Cheers.

TFO, if you have a mortgage then buildings insurance is mandatory, but even if I owned it outright I could not consider a 100K plus asset without insurance, imagine if it burnt down uninsured??

The majority of Landlords insurance is just buildings + contents (albeit just £5-10k – to cover kitchen and bathroom). They’ll pay loss of rental income (for a limited period) if it floods, burns down, but won’t pay out for repairs if your tenants trash it (unless you’re willing to pay a handsome fee, and i think the ins company would want to vet the tenants)

Mortgage or no mortgage you’d be bonkers not to have buildings insurance, its not a lot.

Direct line.

Just imagine if your tenantds wahing machine flooded the flat below, or their fridge caught fire and burn the building down, you would be laible as the owner.

If it’s a flat do you pay a monthly maintenance charge? I do and mine includes the buildings insurance so I only take out my own personal contents cover. When I come to let it I am not sure if I will bother, only the sofa and wardrobes worth anything really. Although I guess the new boiler would be too.

If it’s a flat do you pay a monthly maintenance charge? I do and mine includes the buildings insurance so I only take out my own personal contents cover. When I come to let it I am not sure if I will bother, only the sofa and wardrobes worth anything really.

Might not cover you if it is let, which I think might be the OP’s issue. Most domestic insurers exclude letting so you cannot just let your own house/flat and expect to keep your previous insurance as it will probably exclude letting.

I bought mine through SimplyBusiness.co.uk, was a better price than DL for multiple properties. They were decent enough when I needed to make a claim after a fire caused a fair bit of damage.

andyl – Member
If it’s a flat do you pay a monthly maintenance charge? I do and mine includes the buildings insurance so I only take out my own personal contents cover. When I come to let it I am not sure if I will bother, only the sofa and wardrobes worth anything really. Although I guess the new boiler would be too.

Posted 51 minutes ago # Report-Post

Even though its your flat, you may still need the permission of the managing agents and mortgage provider to sub let, and they will rquire you to insure your tennant for any damage they may do, both by accident and willfully.

half the flats in the building are let. I just need to notify the company who deal with our day to day stuff.

As for the mortgage – yes I am dreading contacting them to check with them as they may want to put my rate up. Currently on 1.2 above base rate.

they will almost certainly put your rate up. Check your T’s & C’s. They could also decline to continue to provide the finance, that probably depends on your equity levels though. Mortgage lenders are being very discerning at the moment.

looks like I might be fecked as First active no longer exist and they now use Natwest: http://www.natwest.com/personal/mortgages/g3/all-our-mortgages/buy-to-let.ashx

£1,999 arrangement fee – bunch of crooks.

tbh I am tempted to just do the flat up and sell it.

Shame as the rent was going to pay the mortgage, the rent where I am now and all my bills and council tax leaving me able to put most of my money into my business. Looks like that idea is now down the pan.

when I had a house that I let, I used Aviva (ex-Norwich Union) for buildings insurance. It was unfurnished so contents insurance was up to the tenants to sort out.

the popular (with some STWers) Sarah Beeney advertises Direct Line Landlord Insurance

Wouldn’t like to be flying home to sort stuff out every time a tap started leaking.

Landlord insurance won’t cover that. You need an agent to take care of repairs.

For Landlord Insurance we’ve used Adrian Flux for the last couple of years.