Common sense advice on keeping your Landlord Insurance premiums low

It does not matter how many properties you own here are ten very common sense things you can do to keep your landlord insurance costs to a minimum.

1: Do not claim on your insurance unless it is worth it. If you have an excess of £250 think carefully before claiming for the £300 damage to the kitchen oven. You’ll only see £50 of benefit and every claim is recorded and will be used as a weighting factor in your next premium calculation. If you need to claim £30,000 for flood damage, then no problem, that is what you have insurance for – thank goodness!

2: Don’t omit any information about tenants, void periods or anything else to do with your property. If they are DSS then say so, don’t pass them off as working professionals. The price difference will be minimal on your landlord insurance but if you make a claim and something is discovered, you could lose any pay out and be refused insurance in the future.

3: Make sure you have the right amount of insurance. If the rebuild value of the building is £100,000, you do not need £1million cover. You are paying for what you don’t need and would never be able to claim. The more accurate you can be on values, the less you will pay in premium. And don’t mistake property value for rebuild price; they are very different in most cases. If in doubt check your mortgage valuation for the buildings and factor in inflation since the mortgage started.

4: Do you really need landlords contents insurance? If you are letting the property unfurnished your risk in the property should be minimal, so decide whether you want to pay £80+ for this extra cover.

5: Keep changes to your policies to a minimum. If you are constantly calling your insurer and changing details and values then you will incur charges all the time. Not all brokers or insurers charge but most do, so be wary of this.

6: Combine your properties together to get extra discount. If you own 10-properties, get them aligned to a single renewal date and then push your broker for more discount on volume – don’t forget they have around 25% commission that they can reduce if they really want your business.

7: Tell the insurer as much as you can about the property. The more information you give them about your property and tenants, the more chance they can reduce the price. The more they know, the less the risk.

8: Forget boiler and heating insurance add on packages. These will cost anything from £10 per month per property and will only cover newer model boilers. Most will be £20 per month. That’s £240 per year – give it six years and you could buy a new boiler if you had simply sat the money in an account. With most boilers lasting 10-years + it’s a no brainer to avoid.

9: Rent guarantee schemes sound great, but make sure you are getting value for money. Most schemes will reference your tenants before giving cover. That is maybe the most valuable part of the service as you can then trust your tenants and have a safety net if they do not pay on time. However, if you have DSS or HMOs then rent guarantee may not cover them because they are less likely to pass the referencing.

10: Don’t pay your premium on credit unless it is interest free. Paying monthly interest only makes sense if you have no other option and need the cash flow as you are paying extra for the credit.

We are now at the stage where we can GUARANTEE to beat any like for like quotation for landlords insurance. What’s more, by using our recommended Landlords Insurance providers you will also be helping to fund the running costs of Property118.com so you save money and our community benefits too. Everybody is a winner

By the time your insurance renewal falls due you may well have forgotten about this article. Therefore, if you put your contact details into the form below we will make sure you are contacted by our landlords insurance scheme administrator a week or so before your next policy is due for renewal. If you don’t give it a try you will never know how much you might be able to save so you might as well complete the form now, it should take less time than it took you to read this article.

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