Why Some Types of Tenant are Higher Risk than Others?

Video transcript

As a landlord you’ll want to be sure that your tenants treat your property with respect to minimise the risk of damage. Some tenants are more likely to cause you problems than others which means many insurers won’t insure your property if your tenants are students or claiming benefits. Here at Towergate, we’ll insure you regardless of your type of tenant. So students, those claiming benefits and even those seeking asylum can all be covered by our policy.

So why are these types of tenant higher risk?

Those claiming benefits are known by insurers as DSS tenants. DSS tenants often don’t have 100% of their rent paid for out of their benefits. This means that some of the rent will still need to come from your tenants. If your tenant can’t pay the additional amount to make up the full rent, you may need to take action to claim your money.

So what about students? Let’s face it, we were all young once and if you’ve been to university you’ll know that partying is as much a part of the student culture as studying. Sometimes a greater part in fact! In addition to the increased likelihood of party related damage, students are often a bit slower to report problems. Sometimes this means that damage to your property can be worse and your claim value will be higher as a consequence.

Accidental damage is covered by our standard let policy. However, students have been known to cause malicious damage also. Of course, most students are respectable young people who wouldn’t even think of intentionally damaging your property. If you want a greater level of cover though, our prime let policy also covers malicious damage.

You may think that excesses would increase with higher risk tenants. In fact, if you take out a policy with us our excesses remain the same no matter who your tenants are. Our standard excess is £100 except in the case of a water leak or subsidence. In which case the excesses are £250 and £1000 respectively.

If you’d like more information on landlord insurance, call our specialist team or get a quote online.