Residential Landlord Insurance

Starting out in business – Insurance

May 11

Posted by admin in Business Insurance | 7 Comments

When you’re thinking about setting up your own business, insurance is an important aspect to think about. Do your research thoroughly, find out what insurances you legally must have, and which would be a good idea to have. If you understand the risks of your business then you can put suitable cover in place to protect you.

Insuring a business can be expensive. Some of the costs you cannot avoid so it’s good to know about them in advance when you’re putting together your business plan. Others will be very useful to you, and some will perhaps be less useful to your particular business, so pick your insurance products carefully to make them best suit your business needs.

If you have employees, even if you only have one, you are legally required to have Employers Liability Insurance (ELI). This covers you for injury or illness of an employee while working for you. If your business has potentially hazardous aspects such as working with dangerous chemicals for example, then you will find your premiums higher than average.

If you work in the financial or legal sector then you are also legally required to have Professional Indemnity Insurance. For all other businesses this is optional. This covers you for clients suing you if they believe you have given them bad advice or service. The amount of claims made in this area has increased massively over the last decade, so it’s worth looking at even if you don’t fall into the categories that are required by law to have this cover.

If you deal with the public then you should definitely consider Public Liability Insurance. This covers you if a customer injures themselves on your premises, or becomes ill, perhaps they suffer food poisoning after eating in your establishment. Even if you don’t run a shop or restaurant etc. do remember that if you have clients visiting your offices, this insurance will cover them too for an injury sustained while on your premises.

If your business makes and distributes a product you can take out Product Liability Insurance, which will cover you if you send out a product with defects that then injures someone or damages something. Your premiums for this cover will depend largely on the type of product you manufacture and the level of risk associated with that type of product.

Shopping around for your travel insurance

Apr 29

Posted by admin in Travel Insurance | 8 Comments

Buying your travel insurance can be a bother. Shopping for insurance isn’t any fun, it’s not like buying shoes or a big television, but you know it’s important so you have to do it thoroughly.

Finding the best travel insurance policy doesn’t necessarily mean you should simply choose the most expensive though. In many areas of shopping you do get a better product the more you pay, but insurance prices differ a great deal, some companies simply charge more than others and give you no better service.

Don’t buy your travel insurance from your travel agent, these policies are notorious for being overpriced. Instead get online and start searching for a great policy at a good price. As with most insurances, all the best offers and deals are usually to be found online. These days with all the price comparison websites a lot of the hard work is done for you. Visit one or more of these sites such as Money Supermarket or Compare the Market, then simply tap in all your details and the site will bring up a list of policies that meet your needs. You will probably be able to sort these by price, but if there is a rating system then this is worth looking at too. There’s no point going for the cheapest, if the company has a bad reputation.

Do read all the details carefully and make 100% sure the policy covers exactly what you need. Make sure you have sufficient cover for your baggage. If you’re participating in any sporting activities while on your holiday then will need extra cover for that.

Also remember that not all insurance companies are included in the searches of the comparison sites, Direct Line is one that springs to mind, so if you want to make totally sure you’re getting the best deal possible then remember to get a quote from these companies too.

You may well also be able to make some money by using a cashback website. If you’re not familiar with these, the concept is that you visit the insurance site via a link on a cashback website, and if you buy the product then you will get some money paid back to you via the site.

Pet Insurance – What will be Covered?

Apr 22

Posted by admin in Pet Insurance | 7 Comments

Sadly the NHS don’t extend their services to our pets, so we have to pay their medical bills ourselves. Even a minor problem can end up costing quite a bit, so it’s a good idea to get pet insurance so if your pet becomes sick or injured you don’t need to worry about the costs as well as worrying about your poorly pet.

All pet insurance polices are different so as with all insurance policies, do read the paperwork thoroughly and don’t just go for the cheapest one, or even the most expensive one thinking ‘you get what you pay for’ because it may well not be true. Prices of insurance policies differ a lot and the reasons why are not always apparent.

It’s easier with pet insurance to look at what may not be included. If you pet has pre-existing conditions when you take out the policy, then these will most likely not be covered, so for example if your dog has a heart condition for which he takes pills, you won’t be covered for the pills, but if he gets hit by a car and breaks his legs, or develops a kidney problem, then these will be covered by the insurance policy.

Policies also differ in the length of time that they will pay out for a condition. Some will cover for the lifetime of the animal, others will cover for a year and only once, so if your cat has kidney failure but successfully recovers from the treatment, then a few years later has kidney failure again, then with a policy like that you will be covered for the first instance but not for the second.

You won’t be covered for vaccinations, neutering or worming. You might not be covered if your pet is pregnant and the condition is related to that. You’re unlikely to be covered for behaviour problems, although some policies do include this. You’ll find some top of the range policies that have several extras like this, as well as complementary therapies which may be important to you if that is something you’re keen on yourself.

There is usually a period at the beginning of the policy where you are not covered, so get your pet insurance as soon as possible. Dental treatment is sometimes not covered, again you’ll find this included in some top of the range packages. Special prescription diet food will not be included either.

Insure your pets while they are young

Apr 11

Posted by admin in Pet Insurance | 6 Comments

When you get a new pet it’s very exciting, they’ll be full of life and vitality and the last thing you’re likely to be doing is thinking about them getting ill, but it’s something you need to think about straight away when you get a pet.

Generally, the older an animal gets, the harder and more expensive it can be to insure them for the first time. You do need to bear this in mind if you take on an older animal. You’ll need to look harder to find a reasonably priced policy, you’ll likely pay extra, and you may even find you cannot insure your pet at all. If this turns out to be the case for you, I’d recommend putting a little money away each month towards potential vets bills for your own peace of mind.

If you have a young pet though, a puppy or a kitten, start looking for insurance straight away. Even young animals can get sick, and it’s easy for a bouncy pup or a kitten that hasn’t yet learnt to be streetwise to get away from you and have a road accident. Vets fees are expensive whatever the size or age of your pet. You’re much better off getting a policy in place immediately just in case.

Policies for young animals, especially common pets such as cats and dogs are easy to find and very reasonably priced these days. They also often come with various extra services such as animal health advice help lines, help with locating lost pets etc. Most policies will come with extras of some sort, so it’s worth comparing the extras if you find two similar policies, it could be these add-ons that make one policy the better one for you with all other aspects being equal.

Having told you to insure your pet early to save money, I also need to warn you to be careful when taking out your policy, that the premiums won’t increase massively as your pet gets older. A cheap policy now can sometimes work out very expensive as you get penalised for the age of your cat and you end up with huge premiums ten years down the line. Find a policy that rewards you for insuring your pet at a young age by not increasing your premiums dependant on age.

Small Home Business Owners Should Not Put Off Getting Business Insurance

Mar 27

Posted by admin in Business Insurance | 10 Comments

Starting a small business can take a lot of money. Often times the money has to be stretched out to cover all of the expenses it takes to open the business. Corners have to be cut and sometimes things have to wait until income starts coming in to help cover expenses. One often overlooked and ignored expense can be that of business insurance. This is unfortunate for it leaves a new business owner at a great risk. Not only is the entire investment in the business at risk but perhaps the entire assets of the business owner including their home and personal property. Business insurance is one thing that should make it to the top of a small business owner’s priority expense list.

Those small business owners that work at home believe that they don’t need business insurance. They think that that either they won’t have the traffic flow of most other businesses or that since they do business that doesn’t require customers to physically visit their place of business then they don’t need business insurance. However, business insurance isn’t just for covering the accidental injury of someone coming onto the property of the business. There are many more concerns of a business owner besides personal injury claims.

Business insurance gives protection against not only injury to the business owner while working in the business as well as physical injury coverage to employees and customers, but it also provides coverage against business theft. If inventory or equipment were stolen the policy would provide protection. There could also be a loss of equipment due to theft or damage that could cause a business to be unable to operate for a time period. Nothing can provide the protection needed to get the business back up and running again like a business insurance policy. No business owner should ever consider operating without the proper business insurance.

Often times a business owner can think erroneously that they will be fully covered by their own car insurance or home insurance when working from home, but this could leave a business owner vulnerable to considerable financial loss. Business insurance is a specialized insurance coverage and for a small business owner there are specialized products that are built to cover the right needs and they are surprisingly very affordable. No one should put off proper business insurance coverage and this is especially so for the new small business owner that has made considerable investment into not only the business but their future as well.

Buy to Let Insurance will be a Necessity on a Rainy Day

Mar 19

Posted by admin in Buy to Let Insurance | 7 Comments

Managing a buy to let property is full of responsibility. Things will come up on normal days which are totally unexpected. Tenants leaving without giving any notice at all, leaks springing from pipes which seem like were just replace last year, and renters making bad decisions about that huge aquarium they told you about earlier this year. Managing a buy to let or owning one as a landlord puts you constantly in a position of vulnerability. To limit your losses on any typical day, it is almost a necessity to carry buy to let insurance. This cover will certainly bail you out of a sticky situation when you are totally caught off guard.

Few people realize the true stress involved with managing a buy to let property. They go through every day enjoying the luxury of being able to have one thought on their mind at a time. They also never have to consider the possibility of having to multi task and accomplish three things at once. These are things which happen during any typical day of a buy to let landlord or manager. To manage a buy to let property takes patience, organization and the ability to make decisions quickly which will have favorable outcomes. All these things can be done more effectively with buy to let insurance.

One of the most attractive features about buy to let insurance is its ability to be completely customized and enable it to cover exactly what is needed to be covered. Another attractive quality is the fact that adding items to be covered does not cost that much more per month. A small amount of research on buy to let insurance will demonstrate this point. Additionally, obtaining buy to let insurance takes a short amount of time. Purchasing a buy to let insurance policy can also be done right here online.

So many property managers are looking for a way to get ahead. The answer to getting ahead, while managing or owning buy to let property is to purchase a buy to let insurance policy and let go of worries you previously had without insurance. This will immediately impact your performance while on the job. It will enable you to focus on the day to day operations and making the buy to let property a more profitable piece of property.

The wonderful world of travel insurance!

Mar 12

Posted by admin in Travel Insurance | 8 Comments

Who doesn’t want to travel? To see the sights and sounds of strange new places; to discover new lifestyles; to indulge in the local culture. But wait! What if something went wrong? What if your holiday of a lifetime came to an abrupt halt due to unforeseen events? As many are taught at an early age – be prepared!

While travel insurance is not mandatory, it is there to cover you “just in case” something goes awry. As with all types of insurance (home or otherwise), there is the temptation to think “It won’t happen to me”. Well it can and does happen to someone. My advice is therefore to always get insurance – you can always shop around and get the right policy that is tailored for your particular requirements.

Travel insurance will cover you for the more regular mishaps such as lost baggage at the airport or sickness when abroad. The latter is an extremely common occurrence with up to 40% of travellers claiming for two days or more. So if you’re travelling to somewhere where you know the cuisine or sanitation is not what you’re used to, insuring against it is advisable.

But you don’t need to insure for everything. If you’re flying cheaply, it may not be worth insuring against cancellation. By the time you’ve paid off the excess it may turn out to not be worth your time or trouble. One thing to bear in mind – if your flight is expensive, purchase the insurance when you book the flight – don’t leave it to the last minute. If for some reason you need to cancel, say for a family bereavement, you won’t be covered.

Inflated medical insurance should also be assessed. While it can be expensive to pay medical bills when abroad (such as in the USA), you should avoid paying absurdly high charges that your insurer may want you to purchase. Some may try to get you to purchase cover beyond what you need. If you feel that is unnecessary, shop around – there are plenty of providers.

Finally, make sure you read the small print of any travel insurance you are potentially going to purchase. Make sure everything you want covered, is; this applies particularly to your baggage cover. Many policies will provide a good general level of insurance but may limit the amount you can claim for a single item. If you need to, specify on your policy any high value items you are taking with you.

Before You Start Your Business Get Business Insurance

Mar 5

Posted by admin in Business Insurance | 9 Comments

No one would ever think about getting into a car and taking off down the road without proper car insurance coverage. However, new business owners all over the UK begin putting together a new business without the proper business insurance policy in place. This is putting your entire business and the investments into it at risk for loss before you ever get started.

Business insurance is not a difficult policy to acquire. It would seem after getting all of the other paperwork and things in place for a business that insurance would surely be complicated and difficult but for once you have something involving your business that is simple. Just as one can purchase about anything quickly and easily on the Internet so can a business owner inquire and purchase business insurance. Often times at a great savings than going through a middle man or insurance broker with a brick and mortar physical location. Business insurance is easy to purchase because insurance providers have made it simple.

While starting a new business and purchasing business insurance is a new thing for you, it is an everyday occurrence for an insurance provider to offer a new business owner a quote and policy. Since it is a common task the process has been simplified. Insurance providers know what you need covered according to the type of business you are running and they have all the points you know you need covered as well as many others. By simply letting the insurance providers know your business they can give you a quote and offer a policy. The business owner can choose which date to have the policy begin and all of it can be done without a lot of time or stress involved. This is especially so if it is done online.

Once a policy is place it is important that the business owner become acquainted with the policy and look it over carefully and store it in a safe place so that it can be referred to whenever needed. When there are changes or growth phases accomplished within the business there should be a review of the business insurance policy and a probably a new updated one acquired. This will assure that as the business grows so does the coverage needed to protect the business. To take the risk to start a new venture was all the risk you need to take, eliminate the rest by having a quality business insurance policy in place.

Pet Insurance

Feb 27

Posted by admin in Pet Insurance | 7 Comments

Would you want your loved one to be treated with the best care and attention when they are in an accident? Well to a large proportion of the UK population their pet is their loved one. Can you imagine not being able to pay for their care?

Pet Insurance is a necessity if you don’t have a lot of spare money around for an emergency as who knows when your beloved pet will be involved in an accident. By the very nature of them, accidents happen when we least expect them. But you wouldn’t want little Tigger to suffer while you try and raise the money to pay for their care.

When you buy a new pet, one of the first things you should think about is getting a new pet insurance policy. If you get the policy when you get the pet it will cover illnesses that can develop over the lifetime of your pet. If you wait until the pet gets older and has already started to become ill in some way then you will probably find the policy won’t cover the pre-existing problems. So as a good precaution the earlier you buy your policy the better. Some insurance companies won’t cover pets over a certain age depending on what your pet is and how long they would typically be expected to live, but the older your pet is when you take out the policy then the more you would expect to pay in premiums. So it might seem like you are paying out for a long time but in the lifetime of your pet it would probably work out cheaper.

There is usually an excess to pay when you have a claim but it is typically around £50 but this could be lower or higher depending on how much you pay for your policy, a little like motor insurance. But it is certainly an amount easier to find than thousands of pounds that you could be trying to find if your pet is involved in a serious accident or has a terrible illness.

There are some policies, which will pay out if your pet dies, or it is lost, or has been stolen but of course you need to check if your policy would cover this before making a claim. And ideally, if these are things for which you might think you would need to make a claim then you would check the policy before taking it out.

Insurances for Landlords

Feb 20

Posted by admin in Landlord Insurance | 7 Comments

Being a landlord can be a profitable business, but it also takes quite a lot of work, more than some people imagine before they begin letting out properties. You have to deal with the maintenance and problems that occur with all houses, not only for your own home, but for others too, so it’s very important to help protect your investment and the hard work you’ve put in, with a good Landlord Insurance policy.

As with any insurance policy, make sure you shop around. There are an increasing amount of specialised Landlord or Buy-To-Let Insurance products on the market, so find the one that best suits your needs. Remember to use the comparison websites to find a good price too. If you have more than one rental property then also take a look at multiple property policies as you may well be able to make a saving that way.

The issues you may face as a landlord are very different from those you’ll experience as an ordinary home owner, that is why you need a special type of insurance for your rental properties.

As with any property you’ll need the building to be insured. In a worst-case scenario, should the building burn to the ground or be ruined by flooding, you’ll want to be insured for the cost of rebuilding it.

As well as covering the building, you’ll also want to cover your back. Make sure your Landlord Insurance policy includes liability insurance. No matter how thorough you are with the maintenance of your rental property, there is always a chance that a tenant could be injured by something you’ve neglected. With liability insurance, you’ll be covered for damages and legal fees.

Many Landlord Insurances will also cover you for intentional damage. If a tenant maliciously vandalises your property then you can claim on the insurance to fix the damage. These days it is getting more usual to sue for damages for accident and injury. Personal injury claims have increased by 85% in the last decade. Payouts awarded can be huge, so it makes sense to be covered.

Another useful feature that you will find included in some policies is the provision of alternative accommodation for your tenants should your property become uninhabitable. If you rent out a block of flats for example, this would be a great help in a stressful situation.