Advice on landlord insurance

Branoic

Could anyone recommend a good landlords liability insurance policy? I've been trying to search with the various companies out there for online quotes but to be honest not really sure what I need to look for.

I basically want something that will cover:

1) accidental injury to the tenant or visitor while in the property
2) damage to my fixtures and fittings (appliances, TVs etc)
3) damage to the interior structure of the property such as walls and floors (such as water damage)

I was looking up Zurichs online quotes and came across a problem with the above. Because the property is an apartment they only let you choose contents cover and not building cover, but then later on they say that the contents cover includes the tenant's property but not the landlords fixtures and fittings.

Ciara22

Hi Branoic,

For anything internal to your apartment, (furniture, carpets, appliances etc) you should take out contents insurance. Bear in mind that you should only insure property that you are providing and your tenants should insure their own belongings under their own separate policy.

Also, the actual structure of the building (walls, wooden floors, fixtures etc) is already covered under the Apartment Block Policy which you pay towards as part of your annual service charge. There is no need for you to take out an additional policy for this.

Im not sure if you are responsible for public liability within the apartment itself, but your tenants and their visitors would be covered under the Apartment Block Policy should any accidents occur in the common areas of the building.

Hope this helps.

Branoic

Thanks Ciara. The issue is that I recently had a leak from my bath which has gone unnoticed for a while and which will now require me to take out the bath and probably replace the flooring underneath it if rotten. I've been told the block insurance doesn't cover this, and I don't have my own insurance in place (yes, stupid). So I want to get something that'll cover that sort of damage for the future. The other problem is that with the likes of Zurich they say their contents insurance doesn't include the landlords contents, which seems pretty pointless to me!

antoinolachtnai

I think this is really a risk that you will have to manage. I don't think you will have much luck insuring this type of risk, or if you do, it will work out quite expensive.

Ciara22

Branoic,

Who told you that the Block Policy doesn't cover this? Of course it does. If the leak from your bath caused damage to the flooring (tiled or wooden) then the insurance will cover the costs to repair/replace same and also to replace the damaged bath if necessary. The only thing that the Block insurance doesn't cover in this case is the costs for the plumber to fix the actual leak.

You need to notify your management company of this problem as soon as possible, sending them photos of the damage and estimates for the repair. They should log a claim with the insurers on your behalf and it goes from there.

The insurers may send out a Loss Adjuster, depending on the costs involved, and he will either agree or disagree with you whether it is an insurable case. The only reason that it may not be insurable, is if you noticed the leak and did nothing about it for months. However, you can argue that you didnt know about it as it was under the bath and not visible until you were notified by the tenant below (or however you did actually come to notice it)

The main point to remember here is that insurance only covers accidents and not negligence. The Apartment Block Policy essentially covers damage to anything in your property that is fixed and that cannot be taken with you if you were to sell the property.

If the management company are telling you that it is not insurable, ask for a copy of the Insurance Schedule and contact the insurers yourself. Also take note of the excess on the policy as recently, these have shot up ridculously and some management companies choose high excesses to get a cheaper premium. Some policies can have an excess of €5000 for water damage which deems most claims useless.

Anyway, if your management company are competent enough, they should be able to help you with this.

bobbyd8

Hi,
with regard to your point on the increased excess now found on some block policies, I've just found out the hard way that we have a 5000 excess on our block policy. Wooden floors were extensively damaged in my apartment through a leaking pipe in an upstairs apartment (her insurance doesn't cover it either), and basically we got a quote for repairs and were shocked to get a quote in the region of 7000-8000. These floors weren't covered by our own contents insurance, and I'm wondering if a claim can be made against the block insurance, and who is typically responsible for this excess.
Is there any legal obligation for the management company to inform us of this ridiculous excess so that we might have looked at getting different cover?
Rob

Carawaystick

If you own the apartment, YOU are the management company

Whoever is responsible for the pipe is liable, either your neighbour upstairs or the management company. The fact they don't have insurance doesnt mean they need not pay for the damage caused