Looking at a landlord insurance quote, rather than just renewing your existing buy to let property insurance, may be one way of helping you find out if your existing policy is offering you value for money in today’s insurance marketplace:

• the policies of different buy to let insurance providers may be quite different in their emphasis and may offer differing opportunities for reducing costs;
• you may, for example, find that some policies only cover subsidence as an optional extra while others may include this as standard in their buy to let building insurance (all our landlords insurance policies offer subsidence cover as standard);
• similarly, some landlords may have suffered from a loss of rental income if their tenants had to move out of the property after damage caused by an insured event, such as a fire for example. Some policies – such as ours – may offer, as standard, loss of rent cover (up to a predefined maximum) in these circumstances;
• some providers of buy to let insurance may not provide cover at all for certain types of tenant (students, DSS etc), others, such as ourselves, may do so though;
• you may see on a landlord insurance quote from some providers that there is a flexible voluntary excess, which, with our service, could result in a discounted premium of up to 40%;
• the voluntary excess on a buy to let landlord insurance policy represents the amount that you are prepared to contribute to any insurance claim;
• for example, your buy to let property is damaged by something you have insured against and you have repairs of say £500. If the excess on your buy to let policy is £500 or less then you are going to have to pay the whole bill yourself and your insurance will contribute nothing;
• in this example, it is only when costs rise above £500 that you may turn to your insurance provider for assistance. Even then though, you may wish to consider the future effect that your claim may have on your no claims discount, so for small amounts over £500 it may still be in your best interests not to submit a claim at all;
• from your insurance provider’s point of view, not having to process small claims may help them to save money, so you may find that the higher the voluntary excess you accept, the more could be the discount they may be prepared to offer on the price of your premium.

When times are tough, everyone may have to try and do a little bit of belt tightening. A landlord insurance quote may help you find more cost effective buy to let property insurance without compromising on cover.