Just as any competent homeowner grasps the importance of safeguarding his or her home with acceptable insurance coverage, let property owners must be equally vigilant when it comes to safeguarding their let properties.
Nevertheless, let property owners oftentimes make the pricey oversight of incorrectly or under insuring their properties, only to ascertain later when trying to make a claim that the property is not in fact acceptably covered.
If you are a let property owner, it is imperative that you take the necessary steps to ensure acceptable coverage is in place, or else you expose your investment to the danger of becoming a burden.
In that regards, the first point to appreciate when obtaining your insurance is that standard home insurance is not acceptable coverage for let properties.
Instead, for your insurance to be valid, you must enlighten your insurance provider to the fact that the coverage is for a property you rent out, and thus you require let property insurance.
This form of insurance encompasses a number of options that you can select from, subject to your requisite needs and budget, however, at the very minimum you will need to select building insurance for landlords.
Building insurance is mandatory for the safeguarding of your property, and any lender that mortgages the property is likely to insist that you take out at least that level of protection.
Akin to building coverage with regular home insurance, building insurance for landlords safeguards let properties from the customary insurable events, so should a natural disaster or adversity damage your property, you will not be compelled to finance the pricey repairs out of pocket.
Furthermore, landlords buildings insurance usually safeguards against a range of other threats, so when you talk with your insurance provider make sure you establish what other threats are covered, such as intentional or needless damage.
Safeguarding against as many threats as possible is critical, because you are not always going to be on hand to keep a watchful eye on your property, and when you hand the keys to strangers you have no certain way of knowing that they or their guests will treat your property well.
Somebody should have pointed all this out to a friend of mine who stumbled upon his role as a landlord.
He inherited and moved into a property in the outskirts of the city where he lived, but after less than a year he decided he disliked living in the outskirts and put the place up as a rental.
Unfortunately, he did not seek out advice when he did this, and thus made all sorts of mistakes, including not enlightening his insurance provider and taking out let property insurance.
Another mistake he made was in not efficiently screening his new tenants and, well, you can probably guess the rest, so to make a long story short the tenants inflicted structural damage on a property that was not safeguarded with landlords building insurance, and my friend did not receive a penny from the insurance company.
In addition to taking out the correct insurance, a second point to appreciate when obtaining insurance is that it must be for an adequate amount.
To avoid the problem of under insuring your property, experts advise let property owners to obtain coverage in an amount that will adequately cover the cost of completely rebuilding the property.
Finally, in order to safeguard yourself and your property to the fullest, do not ignore the other coverage options that accompany landlords property insurance.
These include rent guarantee, legal expenses coverage and landlords contents insurance, which when taken out in conjunction with landlords buildings insurance can usually be acquired at a reduced rate.