Feb 2012 Since the mid 1990s there has been a steady rise in the number of buy to let opportunities in the British Isles. Once the Assured Shorthold Tenancy had been put in place, evening out the discrepancies between landlord and tenant, rights wise, the idea of buy to let as a workable investment took rapid and popular hold of the nation’s property speculators. The process is very simple: rather than making choices to let out property you already own (and for which you have a mortgage), you are buying a property with the specific purpose of letting it out. As such, you need to take a mortgage that reflects the purpose for which you are buying a building: and you need to take out buy to let insurance. Buildings taken for the express purpose of renting out are deemed by mortgage lenders and insurers to represent different risks from those purchased to live in oneself – and that means taking out the right cover to keep you going even if something happens to your tenant or tenancy agreement.

Like all insurance, you are going to need to shop around if you want to find the best deal. To a degree, of course, you will be suffering from the same kind of thing that buyers of specialty insurance policies of all sorts have to put up with. The risks involved in buy to let are so specific that you can’t really go around comparing policy attributes. All buy to let policies are going to have pretty much the same things in them. The only difference you’ll be looking at is how much you are being asked to pay for those things, and what, if any, are the exclusions to your cover. If you want to find the best buy to let insurance for the job, you need to look at your own circumstance: and work out from these what you can and cannot afford to be liable for yourself, in the event of a claim.

Example: how much of an excess is there on the insurance policy you are looking at? It’s all very well finding a buy to let policy with nice premiums: until you discover that the reason you have been paying small premiums for your insurance is because you will need to pay a huge excess on a claim. Bear this is mind when looking at buy to let insurance: buildings have things go wrong with them all the time, and they have things go wrong with them even more when they are occupied by tenants. That’s because tenants know that you are the one who will be paying for repairs – you or your insurance, at any rate. You need the cover that will protect your personal finances against unforeseen breakages, loss of rent and acts of God and tenant. In other words, you need the kind of cover that specifically takes into account your status as landlord. Find the best landlord buy to let insurance for your wallet as well as your building, and you’ll be covered no matter what.