After owning a small studio apartment for nearly ten years, I recently had it fully renovated and was ready to get new tenants in. When I looked around at the brand new kitchen and bathroom and the furniture that looked nicer than the stuff in my own home, I panicked and rang my insurance company immediately to get landlord’s insurance. It was quite a lot more expensive than I’d anticipated, but I said yes anyway.

Looking back, I’m not sure if it is worth it. The policy I’ve got covers just a few situations, including rent default by the tenant (although usually I’d be able to evict the tenant and use their bond to pay the default rent first); damage caused maliciously be my tenant (always possible, though I hope I can choose better tenants than that) and replacement cover for the contents of the apartment that I own – all that nice new furniture. But the high excesses – for example, if you claim for rent default, the excess is four times the weekly rent, so you have to be claiming for a couple of months to make it worthwhile – mean I’d probably rarely use the policy.

There are bound to be better landlord insurance policies out there. And there are no doubt quite a few which are an even worse deal than mine. But it definitely pays to look into the details before you pay up.