Times are hard.

On the face of it, renting out your property is an easy way to supplement your income.

Insurance Complications

However, renting out property has significant insurance complications, particularly with regard to personal insurance policies.

Personal insurance policies, by their very nature, were designed to cover personal risk. They were not designed to cover commercial transactions, which is the domain of business insurance. It follows that most personal insurance policies contain cover exclusions when property, whether it be a building or any other asset you own, is rented out to a third party.

For interest sake, the insurable business risk for property rented out would be:

• Loss or damage to the asset itself;
• Legal liability to third parties that may arise from the ownership of this asset;
• And the possible loss of revenue, from insured loss or damage to this asset.

Disclose

In line with this, please disclose any situation where you are renting out property, or any other similar risk.

In the event you have already disclosed that you rent out property (insured on your Personal Insurance policy) and we have confirmed that your personal insurer accepted the risk, then please check that your Personal Insurance Policy Schedule specifically notes and includes this risk.