Separate Buildings insurance for rented office

[paulears]

My landlord is a lovely chap, but VERY old and despite him telling me my office is insured, I'm a little concerned that as a tenant, if something I do burns it down, and the other business upstairs - or floods it etc, if his insurance doesn't cover this - I might have the responsibility. My lease clearly details that I need to have my own insurance for the contents, and also public and product liability insurance (which I have) - but all the insurance companies expect the landlord to have the building insured, NOT the tenant.

I've simply got the assumption the building itself is not my responsibility and no documented requirement for me to cover it. Is this normal? All the people I have approached say they never cover buildings people don't own? I guess I'm worried about nothing, but thought I'd ask the collected wisdom of folk here.

What I do is a bit weird so I have specialist insurance for what I personally do here, and in clients premises - so it's just the risk of me causing a fire that worries me. The kit and everything isn't the problem - just the building.

 

[Alison Moore]

Usually the building is the landlords responsibility, but depending on the terms of the lease, the costs is then passed onto the tenants. We were in a shared office space and had a bill from the landlords once a quarter for our share of the insurance costs. Then we had our own dedicated building, we have to reimburse the landlords in full for the property insurance even though it was their responsibility to insure it. If he's not passing on the costs, he might not have it, or might have just covered the costs in the rental fees. I would ask him for a copy to be on the safe side.

 

[paulears]

I suspect you're right Alison - certainly I'm not paying for it, and I'm quite willing to - but it's very odd that nobody seems to even offer it as an option?

 

[Alison Moore]

As far as I'm aware, it's only the landlords themselves that can take out buildings insurance and they're the legal owners. We looked into it a while about 10 years ago as I wasn't happy with the amount that our landlords were expecting us to pay (as there was no benefit to them ever shopping around for the best deal, as we had to reimburse them in full for it). We were told by the insurers that only the person with the mortgage or deeds could take out the insurance, so they couldn't even give us quotes. Of course, this might not be 100% correct and it might have just been them fobbing us off, but we didn't pursue it further.

 

[Jass T]

I suspect you're right Alison - certainly I'm not paying for it, and I'm quite willing to - but it's very odd that nobody seems to even offer it as an option?

As a landlord of commercial properties, I insure the buildings and bill the tenants seperatly for it.
The tenants are responsible for insuring their own contents.
I don't believe you can have 2 building insurance policies on the same property, hence the insurance companies are refusing you.
The fact you are not paying for the building insurance separately would be a reason to be concerned. Check your lease and see if you are responsible for the building insurance.
If you are then I would query with the landlord why he isn't charging you.

 

[paulears]

No that sounds pretty much what I got this morning. There's no mention of it in the documentation, just a requirement to insure for burglary and the other stuff - specifically for making the property safe after a break in. Nothing whatsoever for the fabric of the building. There are two businesses in the building.

 

[Darren_Ssc]

I suspect you're right Alison - certainly I'm not paying for it, and I'm quite willing to - but it's very odd that nobody seems to even offer it as an option?

The cost of building insurance should be covered by the rent, if it isn't then it's not your problem. Even if you did manage to get cover in your name it's possible they wouldn't pay out as you're not the building owner.

If you think about it, the ability to insure someone else's building and to get paid out if it burns down could lead to a lot of fraud?

A regular public liability policy would cover you for any other unforeseen events.

 

[Frank the Insurance guy]

Hi Paulears,

I appreciate you want the comfort of knowing the Buildings of your property are Insured. However as correctly mentioned in other posts - you cannot insure what is not yours or what you are not contractually responsible for.

If you caused fire to the buildings - your own Public Liability policy should cover this (it covers loss or damage to other peoples property). The landlord will therefore make a claim against you for the loss and your insurers will deal with the claim.

In practical terms though - what happens if the building did burn down? You have your own insurance which would pay for all your contents etc to be replaced, so you should be ok You will just need to find some other premises. Whether the building is insured or not here is irrelevant, other than to your landlord who may just have a fire damaged pile of rubble with no insurance to pay for the rebuild!