| Public Liability Insurance UK When you purchase your landlords property insurance, your policy will come with a wide range of insurance perils. These perils are laid out in the Council of Mortgage lenders handbook and whether you take buildings insurance on its own or choose to accept contents as well, the actual perils covered are fairly similar. The council for mortgage lenders lay down strict guidelines as to the type of insurance perils that must be covered and one of the perils specified relates to liability insurance. A valuable inclusion under most landlord property insurance polices relates to liability insurance cover. This section of the policy normally provides an Indemnity (Indemnity simply means than in the event of a valid claim, the insurance company will pay up, so if an insurer agrees to indemnify you, it means they are going to pay your claim) ) of anywhere between 1 & 5 million pounds, depending on the insurance company. There are a number of different liability issues that face a landlord and the first one is attached to the building section of the policy and is usually known as property owners liability. Sometimes confusion is caused by this term as lenders and banks often refer to the cover as Public Liability. Many insurance polices have been returned by lenders because they feel that the correct term is public liability and not property owners liability. The correct term is actually the later as a landlords building insurance policy will cover liability claims arising out of ownership of the building but will not pay claims resulting from the landlords other business activities.
Thus, this cover will provide an indemnity to the policyholder for amounts that he or she is legally liable for bodily injury or damage to property caused by accidents and occurring at the insured premises. Importantly, this section of the policy will also cover the cost of defence of a claim. Sometimes, liability claims are unsuccessful but the cost of mounting a defence can still be costly and cover would be provided by this section. An example of a claim under this section of the policy would be a tenant, falling down the stairs and breaking a bone caused by the stair rail coming loose. Injuries to tenants in the home are fairly common claims nowadays as there seems to be a never ending supply of , no win, no fee lawyers that are quite happy to take on potential injury claims on a no win no fee basis. There are of course exclusions to the liability section of the policy but these are really all common sense exclusions and will be listed in the contract wording. If you are unclear on any term or condition, your insurance advisor should be pleased to help out. Another liability cover that comes as part of a landlords policy or a home insurance policy is the public liability which attached to the ownership or supply of the contents. Although the value of contents provided by a landlord is low, a potential liability claim for several thousand pounds could arise if the tenant injures themselves on the contents supplied. It is vitally import to check any landlords contents insurance policy to see if liability cover is included as not all of them do. As these policies ( contents only) can often be obtained for only a few pounds per week, it is false economy to buy a contract that doers not come with the correct liability cover. back to top | 
