Maunder Taylor have been specialising in property-related business insurance for clients in Whetstone, Totteridge, Potters Bar and the surrounding area for almost three decades. Here we outline the most important areas managed property owners need to be covered for.
Public Liability Insurance
As a manager, you will need this for any accidents which occur within any of your properties. For example, a tenant could claim that they have been injured owing to some faulty electrics or suffered a fall because something was structurally unsound.
Employers’ Liability Insurance
This is a legal requirement if your management company has any employees (even if it’s just one) who aren’t members of your immediate family. If you were to employ someone to make repairs to one of your flats and they are injured in the course of carrying out the work, then you need legal protection if they decide to pursue a claim against your company.
Directors’ & Officers’ Liability
This is similar to employers’ liability insurance but protects individual directors against any legal actions relating to negligence, health and safety breaches, pollution caused by the company and defamation cases. It is often included under the wider umbrella of management liability insurance.
Professional Indemnity Insurance
You need professional indemnity insurance if you are providing a service – for instance, you have a duty of care to keep communal areas in a good state of repair. If a tenant slipped and fell down a flight of steps because the floor was wet due to a leaking roof or pipe, you could be sued for negligence. This form of insurance will protect you against this type of claim.
Common Parts Contents
While buildings insurance will cover the fabric, fixtures and fittings of all communal areas, there may still be some removable items which you need to have insured separately, such as carpets and furniture. Remember, tenants are responsible for organising contents insurance for their own living space.
Buildings Insurance
Last but not least, the fabric of the building needs to be maintained so you will need buildings insurance. Many insurers offer specialist cover such as ‘block insurance’ or ‘block of flats buildings insurance’ which may cover some of the areas above – and they will also provide financial protection against fire, theft, floods and other extreme weather events. These types of policies also cover outbuildings, garages, driveways and other areas which do not part of any main building.
Maunder Taylor’s Business Insurance Services
Maunder Taylor’s specialist insurance department was formed in 1992 to help advise the growing number of our clients who needed help picking their way through the intricacies of this area of work. We make sure they are covered for areas such as Employers’ and Directors’ & Officers’ Liabilities, Common Parts Contents as well as other property-specific cover.
We ensure that all documentation is in plain English and that every property has the correct level of insurance cover. If you are under-insured, your costs may not be met in the event of a claim, and if you have too much cover you are probably paying too high a premium.
If any of our clients wish to delegate the work to us, we offer a property management service for both commercial and residential properties – including helping to deal with any insurance issues. We look after blocks of flats for all types of clients, including freehold companies, investor landlords, and residential management and right to manage companies. If you would like to know more about this aspect of our work, just click here.
Maunder Taylor also help our commercial clients with their property investments, whether it’s an individual shop or a retail parade, an office block or an industrial estate. We ensure that all the paperwork is dealt with, that the premises are fully compliant with all aspects of the law and we carry out an agreed number of inspections every year. To learn more, follow this link.