| Home Emergency Assistance Policies Home emergency policies are designed to insure the policy holder against certain events should an unforeseen emergency care at the insured property relating to plumbing and drainage, electricity supply, doors or windows that are insecure, primary heating system or refrain emergencies. The benefits of adopting a landlords home emergency assistance cover are as follows:- Traditionally this type of policy was purchased as a bolt on to your Home Insurance although recently, we have found that many insurers are able to offer it to as an extension to a Landlord
What Type of Cover to Expect - the policy is of course designed to cover emergencies happening at the stated risk address, but who decides what constitutes an emergency?, well this does seem to vary from insurer to insurer (although from general consensus, there only seems to be a very small number of players in the market offering customized products for brokers or intermediaries to sell).
The policy document provided to you will list what the insurer deems to be an emergency and you should study this most carefully along with the Keyafcats document outlining the more salient points of the contract. As well as the covers listed, take a close look at the exclusions, make sure you are fully aware of the extent of cover you will be offered
Typically Emergencies we have found include;
- Failure of the hot water system.
- Loss of keys to the property.
- Plumbing problems caused by leaking pipes or blocked drains
- Blocked toilet systems
- Central eating or boiler failure
- Failure of the Gas or Electricity supply within the property
- Broken windows or doors etc, presenting a security issue at the property
- Sudden & unforeseen damage such as a leaking roof caused by storm damage.
- Emergency accommodation cover for the tenant.( usually one night only)
**Remember-if it's not listed as an emergency in your policy document, it probably wont be covered**
This policy is not a Building Insurance policy and it certainly is not a maintenance contract, if you think your premium is going to supply you with a maintenance man for the year, then think again, study the documents carefully so you know exactly what you are buying.
Home Emergency Assistance has to be sold to Landlords, most are unaware of its existence unless that either receive marketing information in the post or their building product provider points it out to them. As an optional extra, it can offer some real peace of mind, particularly if you live many miles away or overseas and do not want to be bothered with the inconvenience of a domestic emergency at your rental property. If this scenario doesn't rally bother you consider an emergency happening at the property whilst you were at work, could you simply drop what you are doing and start thumbing through the yellow pages for a plumber, this in its self can be a very time consuming process, then you may find the trades person does not turn up. Even worse is trying to locate a tradespersons during a time of bad weather, your contract of insurance should in theory put you at the front of the queue and the product provider will use their staff to track down, plumbers, roofers, electricians, etc whilst you can get on with your work.
Even better and subject to your polices confirmation that you can do so, why not give your tenant a card with the emergency phone number on then they know that their Home Emergency is receiving urgent attention.
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