You may have heard that letting property insurance isn’t really necessary if you’re a landlord because you can use cheaper owner-occupier buildings and contents insurance instead. Well, believe it if you like and hope that you don’t ever need to make a claim as typically you will be disappointed!

The reality

The insurance risks associated with a buy to let property (or a property you have decided to start letting out in full or part) are typically higher than for an owner-occupied one.

Insurance companies typically know that only too well and that’s why they may charge a little extra for landlord or buy to let insurance compared to a standard owner-occupier home insurance policy.

So, insurance companies do care very much indeed about whether or not your property is rented out as it affects the risks they’re covering for you.

The owner-occupier policy myth

There are two potential scenarios here:

• you’ve started renting out all or part of your property currently covered by owner-occupier insurance; or
• you’ve got a buy to let property that you’ve taken out an owner-occupier policy for.

In either case, you could potentially be in trouble if your property suffers a problem.

In the first case you may have invalidated your existing policy.

In the second you have made a false declaration for the purposes of obtaining insurance. If you followed that up eventually with a claim, you could be found guilty of making a fraudulent claim and that may be a serious offence.

The knowledge myth

You may sometimes hear apparently sage words to the effect that your insurance company would never know. Believing that may prove to be another grave mistake!

To the contrary, insurance companies do have ways of checking the nature of the occupancy – particularly in the event of a claim. Being caught out could have serious consequence both in terms of your claim being refused and you being unable to secure insurance in future.

Getting the most suitable cover isn’t cost-prohibitive

All this may be unnecessary.

The good news is that typically the cost of landlord insurance is only a relatively modest amount higher than that of owner-occupier cover but will give you the peace of mind that your asset is properly protected.

Through our service, we can help you find suitable letting property insurance at a price that suits your budget. You can do this in one of three ways:

• use our website and get a landlord insurance quote and buy online;
• contact us via email; or
• if you prefer to speak to someone, then call our friendly team to discuss all your letting property insurance options. We are here to help!