Do You Need Landlord Insurance for a Leasehold Flat?
Yes, you still need a landlord policy of your own, even though the freeholder insures the building. The block policy stops at the structure, so your fixtures, your rental income and your liability as a landlord are all uninsured until you arrange them.
The good news is that you are buying less cover than a house landlord, because you should not be paying twice for buildings insurance the freeholder already holds.
What you need instead is contents, liability and rent protection, written for a let flat rather than an owner-occupied one. Get the split wrong and you either pay twice or carry a gap you only find at claim stage.
The freeholder’s block policy insures the structure, so you are not buying buildings cover again. What sits uninsured is your own fixtures and contents, your liability as a landlord and the rent you lose if the flat becomes unlettable after an insured event. Ask the freeholder for the policy summary and the schedule, since you are entitled to see what you are paying for through the service charge. Share of freehold or an RTM company changes who arranges the block cover, not what you personally need.
Compare block of flats insurance quotes if you arrange the building cover too.
- Who insures the building if you own a leasehold flat?
- What does the block policy leave you exposed to?
- Which covers should you buy for a let leasehold flat?
- What can you force your freeholder to show you?
- Has the leasehold and freehold reform act 2024 changed insurance yet?
- What changes with share of freehold or an rtm company?
- What does cover for a let leasehold flat cost?
- Does your lease or your lender make it compulsory?
- Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
Who insures the building if you own a leasehold flat?
The freeholder does, under a covenant in your lease, and you pay for it through the service charge. You are not the policyholder, so you cannot claim on it directly.
What the long lease puts on the freeholder
Almost every long residential lease contains a landlord covenant to insure the whole building for its full reinstatement cost. It exists because a fire in one flat damages everybody’s, and a patchwork of separate policies would never rebuild the block.
That single contract is a block of flats policy, arranged by the freeholder or the managing agent on behalf of every leaseholder in the building.
How the premium reaches you through the service charge
The freeholder pays the insurer, then recharges each flat its share as part of the service charge. Government guidance on leasehold service charges confirms you can challenge that cost at the First-tier Tribunal if it is unreasonable.
Your share is normally a percentage set out in the lease, often by floor area or by a simple split between the flats. Expect £200 to £1,000 a year in a typical low-rise block, and considerably more in a high-rise with cladding remediation history.
What does the block policy leave you exposed to?
Everything inside your front door, everything to do with your tenancy, and the excess. Those three gaps are what a leasehold landlord policy is actually buying.
The gaps inside your own front door
Block policies usually stop at the structure and the communal parts, so your flooring, decoration, white goods and furniture sit outside them. Landlord contents cover picks those up, and it is far cheaper than most landlords assume.
Fitted kitchens and bathroom suites are the grey area, because some leases define them as part of the demised premises and some do not. Our guide to buildings versus contents cover explains the split, but the lease definition beats the general rule every time.
The block excess nobody warns you about
Escape of water excesses on block policies routinely run at £1,000 to £2,500 per flat, which is several times a typical household figure. Our explainer on how an insurance excess works covers the mechanics, but the leasehold twist is who ends up paying it.
Many leases let the freeholder recover that excess from the leaseholder whose flat the leak came from. A £2,000 excess on a claim you did not cause is a bill you can insure against, and most landlords never think to ask.
| Risk or item | Block buildings policy | Your landlord policy | Who pays if you skip it |
| Roof, external walls, foundations | Covered | Not needed | Freeholder, recharged to all flats |
| Communal halls, stairs, lifts | Covered | Not needed | Freeholder, recharged to all flats |
| Fitted kitchen and bathroom | Sometimes, check the lease | Covered by contents | You |
| Flooring, decoration, furniture | Not covered | Covered by contents | You |
| Tenant injured inside your flat | Not covered | Property owners‘ liability | You, up to six figures |
| Leak from your flat into the flat below | Claim goes through the block | Liability plus the excess | You, often £1,000 to £2,500 |
| Rent lost while the flat is uninhabitable | Not covered | Loss of rent | You |
| Tenant stops paying rent | Not covered | Rent guarantee | You |
| Tenant’s own belongings | Not covered | Not covered | Your tenant |
Which covers should you buy for a let leasehold flat?
Contents and property owners’ liability are the two you should never let go. Loss of rent, rent guarantee and legal expenses are judgement calls that depend on how much the rent matters to you.
Contents, fixtures and fittings
Insure the replacement cost of what you provided, not what you paid for it. A part furnished two-bed flat usually lands between £10,000 and £20,000 of contents once you add carpets, white goods and blinds.
Take the sum insured seriously, because underinsurance lets the insurer scale a claim down in proportion. Adding accidental damage cover is worth it in a flat, where a dropped weight through a laminate floor is the classic small claim.
Property owners’ liability
This is the section that pays if a tenant or visitor is injured because of something you failed to maintain inside the flat. It works like the personal liability cover on a home policy, with limits of £2m to £5m as standard rather than £1m.
It costs very little and it is the only section with a genuinely unlimited downside. Never strip it out to save £15 a year.
The optional sections that earn their place
- Loss of rent pays your rent while an insured event, such as a fire in the block, makes the flat uninhabitable.
- Rent guarantee pays when the tenant simply stops paying, which is a different trigger and a separate section.
- Legal expenses funds possession claims and disputes, and matters more now that Section 21 has gone.
Since the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 took effect on 1 May 2026, every tenancy is a periodic assured tenancy and possession runs through the Section 8 grounds. Regaining your flat takes longer, so the rent protection sections have quietly become the valuable ones.
What can you force your freeholder to show you?
A written summary of the insurance within 21 days, plus the right to inspect the policy and the premium receipts free of charge. Failing to provide it is a criminal offence, not a technicality.
The 21-day statutory notice
Section 30A and the Schedule to the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 let you serve written notice asking for the sum insured, the insurer’s name and the risks covered.
The freeholder has 21 days from receiving that notice to comply. You can then require reasonable facilities to inspect the policy and any receipts, at no charge, though a sensible copying fee is allowed.
What the FCA made insurers disclose
Since January 2024, rules confirmed by the FCA require insurers and brokers to treat leaseholders as customers and to hand over a policy summary showing the premium and any commission paid.
Firms are also banned from recommending a policy because it pays them more. If your service charge insurance line has jumped, ask the managing agent for that disclosure document before you argue about the figure.
Has the leasehold and freehold reform act 2024 changed insurance yet?
Not yet. The insurance sections of the Act are still not switched on as at September 2026, so the commission you are being charged today is disclosed rather than capped.
What is in force by september 2026
Sections 59 and 60 of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 limit what a landlord may charge for insurance and create a duty to give leaseholders insurance information, but neither has been commenced.
The parts that did go live are the enfranchisement and management changes: the two-year ownership rule went in January 2025, and the Right to Manage threshold moved to 50% non-residential floor area in March 2025.
What is still waiting on secondary legislation
The government published its response to the leaseholder protections consultation on 15 July 2026, promising standardised service charge demands, annual reports and a permitted insurance payment in place of open-ended commission.
Secondary legislation is due to be laid during 2026, with the measures taking effect from 2027 at the earliest. Budget on today’s rules until a commencement order says otherwise.
What changes with share of freehold or an rtm company?
You stop being a bystander and become one of the people arranging the block policy. That brings buying power, and it brings responsibility if the cover turns out to be wrong.
Share of freehold makes you the client
Where the leaseholders jointly own the freehold, usually through a company, the insurance duty in the leases falls on that company. You and your neighbours choose the insurer, the rebuild sum and the excess.
Get a professional reinstatement cost assessment every three to five years rather than indexing an old figure forever. Underinsuring a block is the single most expensive mistake a resident freehold company can make.
Right to manage companies
Under section 96 of the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002, management functions including insurance transfer from the landlord to the RTM company once the right is acquired.
So an RTM company normally arranges the block cover itself, and the freeholder’s instruction to keep using their broker carries no weight. Directors should also hold directors’ and officers’ cover, which no block policy includes as standard.
What does cover for a let leasehold flat cost?
Roughly £100 to £300 a year for contents and liability on a standard flat, with specialist leasehold schemes quoting from around £112. That sits on top of your service charge share of the block premium.
What you pay, section by section
| What you are buying | Typical annual cost | When you need it |
| Landlord contents and fixtures | £100 to £300 | Always, once you provide anything |
| Property owners’ liability (£2m to £5m) | Usually bundled, £15 to £40 standalone | Always |
| Loss of rent | £20 to £60 | Always, if the rent funds a mortgage |
| Rent guarantee | £150 to £300 | Where arrears would hurt within two months |
| Legal expenses | £30 to £100 | Worth it since Section 21 was abolished |
| Accidental damage | £25 to £60 | Furnished and student lets |
| Your service charge share of the block policy | £200 to £1,000+ | Not optional, set by the lease |
What moves the premium
Location, the building’s claims history and the number of flats do most of the work. A ground floor flat with a communal garden door usually rates worse than the same flat three storeys up.
The way you let matters more than the flat itself. Three or more sharers from separate households makes it an HMO, and short stays need Airbnb style cover rather than a standard let policy.
Does your lease or your lender make it compulsory?
No statute forces a leasehold landlord to insure, but your lease and your mortgage almost certainly do. Breaching either is a far bigger problem than the premium you saved.
What the lease demands
Many leases require the leaseholder to insure internal fixtures and decorations, and to produce evidence on request. Persistent breach of a lease covenant is what gives a freeholder a forfeiture argument, so keep the schedule where you can find it.
Leases also control how you let. Subletting without consent, or running short stays where the lease says private residence only, can void your policy and breach the lease at the same time.
What the lender demands
A buy-to-let mortgage on a flat requires the block policy to be in force and will usually ask to see the schedule at drawdown and at renewal.
Tell your insurer the day the flat stands empty between tenancies, because cover narrows after 30 to 45 days and long voids need unoccupied property cover.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Normally no, because the freeholder insures the structure and recharges you through the service charge. Buying your own would duplicate cover and complicate any claim.
Not directly, since you are not the policyholder. You report the damage to the freeholder or managing agent, who deals with the insurer on the building’s behalf.
The repair is usually claimed through the block policy, and the excess is often recovered from the flat the leak came from. Your liability cover responds where you were negligent.
Serve a written notice under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 asking for a summary of the insurance. The freeholder has 21 days to supply it and must let you inspect the policy afterwards.
No. The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 provisions on insurance costs are not in force as at September 2026, though the commission must be disclosed to you.
Yes, through the First-tier Tribunal on the grounds that the charge is unreasonable. Get the policy summary and commission disclosure first, because that is where the argument usually lives.
No. Their policy covers their own belongings, and anything you supplied stays your responsibility to insure.
You can keep separate policies, but a multi property landlord policy gives you one renewal date and usually a lower rate per flat.
The company you co-own insures the building, so you still buy only contents, liability and rent protection for your own flat.
No. A home policy is written for owner occupation, and letting without telling the insurer usually voids it from the start.