Tenants and renters insurance
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Flat insurance offers the same cover as standard home insurance.
It's made up of two parts: buildings and contents.
Buildings insurance protects the structure of your property, including any fixtures and fittings, while contents insurance covers your possessions.
If you live in a flat, you’ll usually only need home insurance that covers your contents. Whether you own or rent the flat will dictate whether you need buildings insurance or not.
If you’re a flat owner it’s likely you’re a leaseholder, which means you’re unlikely to be responsible for taking out buildings insurance – it will be up to the freeholder to arrange it. You and your fellow leaseholders will usually pay towards it as part of your service charges.
If you own the freehold for your flat, or a share of the freehold, then buildings insurance is your responsibility or joint responsibility along with the other freeholders.
Your mortgage lender will insist on you having buildings insurance if you have a mortgage on your flat, but contents insurance is up to you. It solely protects your possessions, so it’s not compulsory.
Just be aware that without it, you’ll have to cover the cost yourself if your possessions are stolen or damaged.
Living situation | Type of insurance |
---|---|
You rent a flat | Contents insurance only |
You rent a flat and share with other people | Contents insurance only |
You're a leaseholder | Contents insurance only. The freeholder of the block will usually have buildings insurance. But you may need to pay a share of the buildings insurance if the lease requires it - seek legal advice if you’re unsure whether you’re responsible for any of the building’s structure |
You ’re a freehold flat owner, or own a share of the free hold | Buildings and contents insurance |
Buildings and contents insurance for flats covers you for the same risks that insurance policies for other types of homes do.
Contents insurance covers loss of your possessions to things like burglary, fire and flooding.
It covers personal items that aren’t fixed to your flat, such as home appliances and other electrical equipment, clothes, jewellery and furniture.
A good contents policy should include cover for fire, theft and other dangers, but you’ll probably have to pay an additional fee for accidental damage and cover for possessions away from home, as they’re usually sold as optional extras.
Find out more about contents insurance >
Buildings insurance will cover the structure of your flat, including your walls, floors and any permanent fixtures and fittings, like your bathroom suite.
Although you may not have to arrange your own buildings cover as a leaseholder, you’ll usually contribute towards the cost of the policy through your service charge.
If you own the freehold or a share of the freehold, then it's up to you and those who own the other shares of the freehold to arrange cover for the building.
Check your policy wording for how it covers:
If you aren’t sure who’s responsible for insuring the building’s structure, you should seek legal advice.
Find out more about buildings insurance >
If you own a flat that you rent out to tenants, you’ll need to take out landlord insurance.
This type of insurance provides buildings cover to protect against loss from things like fire and weather damage, plus any contents owned by you in the flat. But it can also protect landlords from financial losses associated with renting out a property, like loss of rent and legal expenses cover.
Certain types of protection don’t always come as standard with flat insurance but can be added to your policy for an extra cost. You may want to consider:
Your home insurance premium is calculated based on a variety of factors, including the value of your possessions, the rebuild cost of your home, your postcode and more.
According to our data, combined buildings and contents insurance costs around £180 a year[1].
Individual policies are almost always cheaper, but they may not give you the coverage you need.
You should always find out policies are available, what cover you need and what you can afford before purchasing a policy.
*The average price paid annually for home insurance purchased in June 2023 by type of cover. For buildings and contents insurance, it was £180. For buildings insurance only, it was £141. For contents insurance only, it was £66.
After the Grenfell Tower fire tragedy in 2017, buildings insurance premiums increased dramatically for many leaseholders of medium and high-rise blocks clad in combustible materials or with other fire-risk issues.
At the government’s request, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) carried out a review and in September 2022 set out a range of recommendations to give leaseholders greater protection from high prices in the buildings insurance market.
The package of recommendations includes creating a cross-industry risk-sharing pool to limit the risk to individual insurers posed by covering buildings affected by flammable cladding or other material fire safety risks. By sharing and reducing risk, insurers should be able to reduce the price of insurance for these buildings.
There are a few ways to cut the cost of insuring your flat:
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[1]* The average price paid annually for home insurance purchased in April 2023 by type of cover. For buildings and contents insurance, it was £172. For buildings insurance only, it was £139. For contents insurance only, it was £60.