Commercial Landlord Insurance
For every commercial tenant you have, you’re going to have varying risks. Suppose you are a landlord who lets your properties in for business or commercial purposes. In that case, it can be a complicated process to find the right commercial landlord insurance do you and your situation.
The best commercial landlord insurance out there should be able to provide you with comprehensive cover for all of your properties that let the commercial use, including commercial buildings insurance and landlord contents insurance. Perhaps most importantly, they will help you feel safe about protecting your property with their property owner’s liability cover.
If you would like to read more information or learn more about the pricing of business landlord insurance, you can do so here.
Commercial Landlord Insurance
You’re still likely to have lots of questions about commercial landlord insurance. This is perfectly normal, especially considering how convoluted all of the different policies, add-ons, details and extras there can be offered to you. Here we’re going to look at a few more things that sometimes trip people up just so you know you can start comparing different policies and prices with confidence that you know what you want, what you’re looking for and possibly the best ways to get it.
What is Commercial Landlord Insurance?
So, what exactly is commercial property insurance or commercial landlord insurance? Essentially it is contents and buildings covered for commercial landlords who allow tenants to use for business purposes. There are all sorts of things that can come under the label of commercial property. Suppose your property is used as an industrial unit by a motor tradesman renting it from you. In that case, that is a commercial property, and you are a commercial landlord in that situation.
Perhaps your property is being rented out to someone running a shop but lives in the flat upstairs part of the property. This is also a commercial property for which you are the commercial landlord. For these situations, you should be on the lookout for much of the same coverage that you would typically get as a standard landlord for non-commercial properties. There is a lot of overlap and potential between standard landlord buildings insurance and commercial landlord insurance.
The everyday things that fall under the umbrella include cover for floods, fires, theft, accidental and malicious damage, and damage from natural disasters. This kind of coverage is often bundled with call elements such as property owners’ liability and legal expenses cover, which offers protection against compensation claims that can come up for a whole variety of reasons relating to your ownership of the comparable property.
Why Do I Need Commercial Landlord Insurance?
So, you may be wondering exactly what sort of commercial landlord needs commercial landlord insurance. You may be thinking, “if there is such a range of possibilities in commercial properties, then can we say every commercial landlord needs commercial landlord insurance?”. This is certainly a fair enough question. You may have a range of properties used for a whole variety of things, perhaps all commercial, or perhaps it’s a mix.
Generally recommended that the more extensive your commercial portfolio, the more intensely you should consider getting a policy to cover. You don’t need to worry about this becoming administratively overwhelming. It need not be some freefall situation where you ensure each property separately and constantly keep up with renewal dates and update which properties in your portfolio need their coverage changed.
Luckily, multi-property insurance is now widely offered, also known as portfolio insurance. With portfolio insurance, you can put all of your commercial properties under one policy and gets blanket insurance in the areas you need. This can be a huge time saver by minimizing the hassle that would otherwise come from juggling lots of different singular policies.
What Commercial Landlord Insurance Options Are There?
There are a handful of other optional extras that many landlords add to their commercial property or commercial landlord insurance. In all likelihood, no to your commercial properties will be the same, let alone one of your properties and someone else’s. This is why insurers allow you to tailor policies to include the coverage you need. This way, you are less likely to end up paying extras that you don’t need and instead spend your money on the things that suit your situation better.
One of these is employers liability insurance. This is there to help protect you from the financial losses you may have to deal with if an employee at your commercial property experiences an injury or an illness in their workplace and then proceeds to claim compensation.
You may also look into getting engineering and inspection cover. This covers the costs of contract works and developers and any necessary engineering and inspection. This helps protect you in terms of your buildings and liabilities if you happen to have any development or contract works happening at your commercial property.
So, what exactly does commercial property insurance entail? As a commercial landlord, you properly know by now that commercial risks can be very complicated. This is why the best insurance providers out there will have taken steps to make sure that finding the right insurance is as easy and as streamlined as possible for you as a landlord. You will want your insurer to provide a range of add-ons, extras, and essentials as part of their quote. We recommend you lookout for a few critical things when shopping around for commercial landlord insurance.
- Commercial property owners’ liability cover – the upper ceiling of your property owner’s liability cover will change depending on your insurer. Still, you will be helped to find some offers out there that will cover you for amounts over £10 million. On top of this, you will usually be offered commercial legal expenses cover. These again will vary, but quotes can be found that will cover you for over £100,000 worth of damage. You may never expect to need cover such high amounts, so when shopping around, you may not have the priority to search for someone who will provide a huge number here.
However, it’s definitely worth making sure there is some commercial property owners’ liability, even if you only need to cover a smaller amount.
2. Commercial buildings insurance – now, just how comprehensive a provider’s building insurance is can vary a lot. Ideally, you’ll be on the lookout for a policy that provides cover for things such as theft. In most cases, you’ll also want to get landlord contents insurance to be part of this to provide coverage for any items in your property that belong to you. However, if this is not automatically included, you should still get it as an add-on of sorts with most insurance providers.
3. Unoccupancy cover – all landlords know how stressful it can be to have a building left unoccupied. For many landlords, it is the incoming rent that pays for the property’s mortgage, and it’s reasonable to worry about falling behind on these mortgage payments should fall through for whatever reason.
This is why many landlords look for unoccupied cover as part of their package. Most insurers will provide cover without terms and conditions for 30 days minimum and then extend the scope of the terms and conditions as the time without an occupant grows longer.
Commercial Landlord Insurance – To Conclude
You can see many things and quickly look at commercial landlord insurance. There is no arguing that it can seem initially overwhelming to come to grips with all of the options out there. Different insurers offer different extras and add-ons at varying prices, putting many people off finding the deal that works for them. It doesn’t have to be this way, however. If you can take the time to find a price comparison website and the patients to communicate with insurers your exact needs, then finding a policy that works for you is perfectly doable.
Find out more about the importance of insurance here.
Other useful links about Business Insurance:
Building Insurance for Landlords
Landlord Contents Insurance
UK General Landlord Insurance
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