Landlord Insurance Brokers

Covers the physical structure, fixtures and permanent improvements against fire, storm, impact and accidental damage. Not available for a strata-titled property, since the body corporate’s own strata insurance covers the building and common property instead. For a free-standing rental property, building cover is usually the largest component of the policy.

Covers items the landlord provides for tenant use, such as carpets, blinds, curtains and appliances, while they’re at the property. For a strata unit owner, this can also extend to internal paintwork, wallpaper and fixtures within the unit that the body corporate isn’t required to insure. A tenant’s own belongings are never covered under a landlord’s contents policy.

Covers accidental, malicious or deliberate damage caused by a tenant or their visitors. General theft by an unknown third party is typically included as standard, but theft committed by the tenant themselves is commonly excluded from base cover and needs a specific optional extension added.

Covers lost rental income while the property is uninhabitable or unable to be re-let due to damage from an insured event, generally for a defined period after the damage occurs, and only while the property genuinely can’t be lived in. This is different to rent default cover, which responds to a tenant simply not paying rather than physical damage to the property.

Covers lost rent if a tenant stops paying, abandons the property, or is legally evicted. This cover generally requires a valid written lease agreement compliant with the relevant state’s residential tenancies legislation, and a bond collected upfront, commonly equivalent to at least four weeks’ rent. It’s usually unavailable for short-term or holiday letting arrangements, and won’t respond if rent was already in arrears when the cover was taken out.

Covers legal costs and compensation if a tenant, visitor or member of the public is injured, or their property is damaged, in connection with the landlord’s ownership of the rental property. Liability limits commonly range from around $20 million to $30 million depending on the insurer.

Letting a property through a holiday rental platform is generally treated as a different risk to a standard tenancy, and needs to be disclosed to the insurer. Depending on the policy, short-term letting cover can come with narrower loss of rent calculations, no rent default option at all, and different requirements around collecting a security bond or deposit from paying guests rather than a tenant.

Covers damage caused by a tenant’s pet, generally subject to conditions such as regular property inspections, the pet being listed and approved under the lease, and a pet bond or equivalent security being collected and used to offset the claim first. This typically doesn’t extend to a short-term paying guest’s pet.

Covers the specialist cleaning and biohazard removal costs following a death, physical assault or similar incident at the rental property, including cleanup after a police or forensic investigation. This is a genuinely common landlord insurance benefit rather than a rare extra, several major insurers include it as a standard feature.

A small number of landlord policies now include cover for rental funds lost to an impersonation scam or phishing attack, along with defence costs if tenant information is exposed in a data breach. This isn’t yet a common inclusion across the market, so it’s worth checking specifically rather than assumed.