Landlord building insurance typically exists to reduce your financial risks.

It differs from a normal owner-occupier buildings and contents insurance policy in two important respects:

• it recognises that you have tenants in your property and that this adds risk;
• it needs to deal with the possibility that your house will stand unoccupied for periods of time for redecoration or between lettings etc (if this is more than 30 days, you may require specific unoccupied property insurance protection).

That’s why you can’t just make do with owner-occupier insurance. Yes, it perhaps is slightly cheaper than the typical landlord building insurance policy but it will become invalid the moment you start renting a property out.

Although the majority of tenants are perfectly respectable people who would never dream of causing you any trouble, unfortunately the reality is that they still may never take quite as good care of your property as would you as the owner.

Accidents and associated damage may be more prevalent and tenants may not be quite as inclined to notice problems that may cause cumulative troubles (e.g. a leaky tap) as you would yourself.

Then there are those risks arising from the tenants (and their guests) as people on your property.

If any of them are injured on your property, and this is held to be as a result of your property itself, then you may find that you’re on the receiving end of a claim for compensation. The sums awarded against you may be literally ruinously high unless you have the support of landlords’ public liability cover to help.

In the case of unoccupied property, the position with landlord building insurance may be a little more complicated.

Policies typically recognise that your property may be unoccupied from time to time – and perhaps more than many owner-occupied properties.

If that’s for a week’s re-decoration here or a fortnight between lettings there, then that is unlikely to be a problem in terms of insurance cover. There are additional risks arising from that but that will have been factored into the policy premium.

However, if your property is going to be unoccupied for more than 30 days, it may be advisable to check the implications with the insurance provider and have some form of vacant property insurance put in place.

As the risks for properties that stand unoccupied for longer periods are typically greater, insurance companies may expect to make a special provision through the unoccupied property cover mentioned above.

Landlord building insurance could help insulate you from the worst financial effects of a property-based problem. Thinking about it a little more may be a good idea.