Royalty or the pitfalls of becoming a “Landlord”

We realised that we have moved up in the world when starting to look for a house insurance whilst letting our UK property.

Well, now we are lords - Landlords

And yes, it comes with a nice price tag attached as your normal insurance doesn’t want to know and they may not cover any extended period of unoccupancy before tenants can be found.

But I’m jumping the gun.

The day started with a call to our existing insurance. After I explained the situation the lady in the service center wanted to flog me an insurance premium for the time of unoccupancy. She refused to quote for a renewal although it is due in under 30 days. I had to really become insistent to “hop” over this and get a renewal quote. It was ridiculous and “… last year you received a 42% discount but you are not entitled to it any more…” did not instill any confidence either. They would not cover any period of unoccupancy either.

So I told her that I will certainly discount them and ended the call.

Internet here I come. I use two PC’s one to search and fill out quotes. The other one monitors mail and I leave a window / tab with the first page of any quote request used open. I have been an intermediary myself so I know this type of business.

So I discovered we are now royalty or LANDLORDS.

There are buy to let or just landlord insurances out there. A lot of sites use the same bunch of underwriters or quote engines. One discovers this when referring to the first page of already used sites, the reason I leave a copy open for reference. If they are equal or very similar, no mileage in filling this out again.

I used so called “landlord sites”. Forget it, they all get a backhander or finders premium and all use the standard engines of insurance comparisons out there.

One has to really dig deep and be persistent.
Whilst fielding calls from all the sites that said get a quote online but failed or realised it was a bit on the high side and keep on digging for about 2 hours I started to find nuggets.

http://www.portwood.co.uk/index.htm

They are one of those sites that speak and write the language I’m after. A basic product that can be enhanced and is affordable.

Just to give an idea of the sheer range I’m looking at:

250K rebuild - unoccupied min 60 days - liability min 1million -

Named underwriter $1.125 /year - so far lowest at £412 ! average around £575

So not bad. For 2 hours work I did not spend £150. Allowing that one can offset expenditures against rental income this looks like a £120 profit.

This post will soon be updated with the final choice.

Expat

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