Commercial property insurance

Commercial landlord insurance is not a legal requirement. But it may be a loan condition of your mortgage if you have one.

Whilst not legally enforced, commercial landlords will need commercial property owners insurance if they're looking for financial protection for their commercial property.

What would you do if your building was damaged, and you needed to get it repaired and reinstated so that your tenants can operate safely again? Could you afford millions in pay-out for a liability claim? Or what about the legal fees that will likely come alongside it?

Commerical landlord insurance will help protect you against a variety of circumstances. You can build your cover to include commercial buildings insurance, contents, liability and more. Plus, you'll be covered in a wide range of different situations.

Commercial property insurance is suitable for landlords who let their property out to businesses. This could include offices, retailers, warehouses or pubs and restaurants.

This type of cover is also beneficial for landlords who have a large commercial portfolio and want all covers on one policy for administrative purposes.

Commercial property insurance is important to implement as soon as you exchange contracts for your commercial property – even if you don’t have tenants yet.

This is because even though it’s not fully operating as intended yet, things can still go wrong. Your property could be damaged by situations beyond your control. For example, fire and flood.

Also, unoccupied commercial properties pose a high risk, so it’s important to ensure that your property is also covered for periods of unoccupancy.

Your commercial buildings insurance will need to be based around the rebuild cost of your property. This is to ensure that should anything disastrous happen to your property, you will have the financial protection to rebuild or reinstate it.

Sometimes people get confused and think that the rebuild cost is the sale price, but this isn’t the case. The rebuild cost includes cover for everything needed to rebuild your property, which could include contractors, materials, architects and surveyors’ fees.

When covering contents, you will need to provide a replacement value. Which means you need to think about how much it would cost to replace the contents you’re covering.

Both of these figures – for commercial building insurance and contents – are very important to get right so that your property isn’t over or underinsured.

The owner of the building (the landlord) is usually responsible for commercial buildings insurance – especially if a mortgage is involved. However, it’s always important to clarify insurance responsibilities with both the landlord and tenant prior to letting – even including it within the tenancy agreement.

The landlord would normally cover the building, contents belonging to the landlord and perhaps other types of cover such as liability. Then the tenant would normally be responsible for insuring their own contents.

All you have to do to get a commercial property insurance quote with Protect My Let is click ‘Get a quote’ on this page. You’ll fill out an enquiry form and Protect My Let will be in touch.

They’ll then take the time to get to know you and your property or portfolio so they can make sure they’re getting you the right cover, at the right price. Once you’ve received your quote just let them know when you want to go ahead, and they’ll get you set up.

The main difference between a commercial and residential landlord is the type of property and tenant they're renting to.

A residential landlord owns a private residential property (like a house) and rents it out for people to live in.

A commercial landlord owns a commercial property (like a shop or office building) and rents it out for business use.

Still have some questions about commercial landlord insurance? Find out more in our guides.

Can I insure multiple properties on one policy?

What types of landlord insurance are there?

Do landlords need liability cover?

What does landlord home emergency cover?

What insurance do I need for a furnished property?

How do I work out rebuild cost?

What is landlord legal cover?

Property insurance definitions

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A building valuation will provide an accurate reinstatement cost for your property giving you the information you need to request the right amount of cover from your broker.

BCH is a RICS-regulated company that provides building insurance rebuilding cost valuations via desk-based e-valuations or site-based reinstatement cost assessments (RCA).

Find out more about building insurance valuation services today.