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0:05 AM, 9th December 2023, About 5 months ago 4
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Whether you are a first-time landlord, or you’ve been building your property portfolio for decades, the difficulty in finding landlord insurance is always tough.
With many insurance implications from flooding to cannabis farms, it can be hard to find the right landlord insurance.
Here at Property118, we have teamed up with The Home Insurer which helps provide a top-class service and could help save you money.
Jason McClean, director of the Home Insurer, did not take a typical route into insurance.
He told Property118: “I used to be a commercial director of a motorcycle race team and we had a company called Express Insurance to sponsor the team.
“At the same, I was building a property portfolio, so I mixed my interests in property and insurance to create The Home Insurer.”
Since Jason is a landlord himself, he understands the struggles many landlords face when finding insurance and gives honest advice to his clients.
He said: “I’ve been investing in property for a long time, and I think it’s something a lot of Property118 readers resonate with.
“A lot of us have had similar journeys put money away starting a property portfolio to become our pension.”
Jason says there are a lot of challenges now facing landlords in the rental market.
He said: “I understand what they are going through in current times and the challenges with mortgage relief being removed and the introduction of Right to Rent.
“You now also have councils saying you have to be regulated to rent in their area. I can totally sympathise as a landlord myself with the amount of regulation.”
Jason added: “Bad landlords are never going to be regulated no matter what you do, and good landlords are the ones paying the price.”
The Home Insurer can help with a variety of specific requirements for insurance such as subletting.
Jason said: “We have landlords come to us who sublet and some of them don’t even realise.
“Landlords might sometimes have a local council putting in benefit assisted tenants into their properties, the contract is between the landlord and the council, but the tenancy is between the council and the tenant which is a totally different sort of insurance you need.
“You need sublet or rent-to-rent insurance – standard landlord insurance won’t cover it.
“Many landlords don’t see that and just stick their head in the sand and go to another insurance company to find the cheapest quote possible and if they’ve had a claim, they’ll get it refused which is a real shame.”
He added many insurance companies give their customers documents which are too long.
Jason added: “That’s what gives insurance a bad name because they don’t understand what the insurers are putting out in their documents. The documents can be 100 pages long and if landlords are anything like me, they are far too busy to read a 100-page long document!
“Landlords might find only one line that might apply to them in the insurance document.”
The Home Insurer says they can help landlords in subletting insurance.
Jason said: “We can solve these problems for landlords if they have mixed tenancies and benefit tenants; you name it we can deal with it.”
The Home Insurer prides itself on the relationships they have made with their clients.
Jason explains: “I think we try to solve the problems for people by market-leading prices. Saying that, there may be somebody out there that can get a cheaper quote but with us, you get what you paid for.
“If you go for the very lowest possible quote with a different insurance company whenever you have a claim or you need to speak to that insurer you probably won’t be speaking with the same person.
“Here at The Home Insurer, you can ring us up and speak to the same person who deals with your policy all year long.”
Jason added: “I think the most valuable thing we have particularly with Property118 clients is they renew year after year.
“We go out of our way to have a relationship with them, understand their business and understand what their needs are and deliver to their needs.”
Jason says the greatest challenge for landlord insurance at the moment is flood insurance.
He says: “The flood risk areas are changing on a daily basis. You have places that have never been flooded before now at risk of flash flooding and heavy rainfall.
“Rental properties do not come under the Flood Re scheme. The scheme is between the Association of British Insurers and the government, and it provides guaranteed flood cover for owner-occupied properties.
“However, rental properties are excluded from the scheme as they are seen as commercial.”
Jason says many insurers now do not want to cover floods because of the high flood rate.
The Home Insurer has access to a few specialist flood underwriters who can give flood insurance to landlords.
Jason told Property118: “We try our best to give landlords access to flood insurance, but we can’t guarantee it all the time.
“However, given certain circumstances and talking to the client we may be able to give them an offer with some flood cover included.
“These could include a high excess, or a limit and they may require flood doors to be in place. But by in large because we can speak to our underwriters, we are able to influence what happens on the insurance itself to a degree.”
He added: “If somebody is flooded twice in the last year and it’s a rental property and it’s an ongoing claim, they are unlikely to get flood insurance.
“Typically, you would have to go down the other route which is the Flood Flash route which is a more expensive way of doing it and offers a cash repayment, but the Home Insurer can offer that as well.”
The Home Insurer says they offer realistic solutions to clients when it comes to flood insurance.
“We have solutions on the board to deal with those problems but of course, we need to speak to the landlord and find out more about the property and we can tell you realistically what we can do to help you.”
Jason added that landlord home emergency cover is another big problem facing the insurance sector.
He said: “Landlord home emergency add-ons can sometimes be a misunderstood product. Some landlords think it is a cheque-writing service.
“For example, they think if the boiler is broken down somebody will be out in five minutes and fix it at whatever cost, however, it doesn’t work like that.
“We struggle with home emergency insurance, particularly in the current climate with not many contractors being available with prices being very high. The expectation of what landlords are purchasing compared to the delivery of what they get may not be fantastic.”
Jason added with the low supply of contractors it is difficult for repairs to be done quickly.
He said: “If you have a tenant with a broken-down boiler at 5pm. Yes, your insurance in theory should have someone to come out and fix it straight away but given the current state of the supply of contractors, it’s probably going to be difficult to get someone to come out in 24-48 hours.
“Once they do come out and if you haven’t serviced the boiler or don’t have a Gas Safety certificate then it’s not covered in your insurance as you haven’t maintained it.”
He added: “If it goes over a £1,000 fix then you’ll have to sort that yourself. They are not going to replace the boiler they will just repair it and then you may have to have other work done to repair it. As the repair might only be a temporary solution.
“It’s the expectation being greater than the reality in what is being delivered.”
The Home Insurer always tries to be honest with clients and manage expectations.
Jason said: “I could sit and promise you the world and if you don’t get it you are going to be disappointed.
“That’s not the way we operate – we prefer to be very honest with our clients. We have three things we tell our clients. Firstly, we tell them this is what you’ve paid for, secondly, this is what you are likely to get and finally are you sure you want to buy the policy, it’s as simple as that.
“What I say to clients is we check your policies every year so it’s not automatically we increase the price every time.
“I know a lot of our policy owners this year will have received lower prices compared to last year as we shop around all our markets, and we want to try and give the best policy and price every year.”
Jason says the Home Insurer doesn’t take anything for granted and clients are at the heart of the business.
He says: “We don’t take anything for granted, particularly with Property118 clients as we value them so much.
“We have a relationship with our clients, and we want to make sure their property is covered and for the best possible price we can get.”
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Michael Booth
12:33 PM, 2nd November 2023, About 6 months ago
Has with all insurance YOU MUST READ THE SMALL PRINT AND THE SCHEDULE YOU HAVE TAKEN OUT ,it is no good if you are either under insured or not covered for certain perils be warned.
Easy rider
21:22 PM, 9th December 2023, About 5 months ago
Certainly check that you are covered for the things you couldn’t afford to replace yourself and that the sum insured matches what is insured (not what you might wish to claim).
I really want fire and flood insurance. The rest is less important to me. The cheapest quote is usually good enough.
PH
9:15 AM, 10th December 2023, About 5 months ago
I insure with LV which covers all the necessary, it's not expensive but I've never had to claim so I can't comment any further.
Toni
12:18 PM, 27th December 2023, About 4 months ago
Cheaper insurance isn’t always the better option, we have been with the same broker for a number of years and often thought about changing.
So glad we didn’t as we would not have been covered when we claimed 30K for dry rot caused by a water leek from the house next door.
At first the inures said it was pre existing from before we took out their policy. But we argued that we had been with the same brokers long term. So they agreed to pay out.