Landlord Insurance with Trace and Access Cover*

What exactly is landlord insurance with trace and access?

If you came here looking for landlord insurance trace and access meaning, you have found the right page. However, before diving in the subject matter it will be appropriate to establish some context:

Confusing?

Things can get a little confusing, when you progress into the legal intricacies of being a landlord. Having a landlord insurance is a vital prerequisite, but knowing how to effectively manage your insurance policy is a learning process that can sometimes be challenging and elusive when you’re getting started.

Finding a straightforward answer!

There are many situations where your insurance will cover a wide range of property damages, but it’s never as straightforward as it sounds at first; more often than not, there will be a caveat of some kind.

Accidental damage or not?

For example, most landlord insurance policies at the basic level covers water damage caused by burst pipes. However, in order to claim for compensation over such an issue, you may be required to prove the water damage was the result of a sudden leak that was also accidental.

Is it all covered?

This is actually reasonable, since otherwise people could just throw all kinds of maintenance bills at their insurance providers, regardless of the specifications detailed in the insurance policy.

Who foots the bill?

What may not seem as reasonable is that you’ll typically be expected to foot the bill for trace and access activities associated to the repairs; unless otherwise stated in the policy, your insurance policy will only cover repairs for the direct water damage - not its source.

What is landlord insurance trace and access meaning?

For the sake of preserving reasonable logic, it should also be pointed out that insurance companies are a business, not a charity. Which means they have to safeguard their own interests first and foremost, in order to preserve their financial stability.
This implies they will sometimes have to resort to a bit of semantic juggling when it comes to phrasing insurance policies, in order to strike a balance between what clients want and what the business needs.

A good illustration of this principle can be observed in how insurance policies relate to water damage. While most companies will indeed pay for the direct cost of repairs caused by a leak, they won’t necessarily pay for the cost of repairing the source of the leak (which can be significantly higher in comparison).
This is where the concept of landlord insurance trace and access meaning comes into play.

Simply put, most insurance companies in the UK will not offer trace and access cover as a base policy, and this isn’t always explicitly pointed out until there’s an insurance claim around water damage.
This means that in the eventuality there is a burst or leaking pipe in your property whose fixing involves causing collateral damages to your properties.
Such as cutting through wall plaster or floor boards to access the faulty plumbing - you will have to pay for the actual repairs and the insurance company will only pay for the direct water damage.

Why it’s wise to choose landlord insurance with trace and access cover?

Since paying for trace and access for repairing water damage will likely be pricey, you might find it better to simply get an insurance policy with trace and access cover, if you anticipate there could be issues in your property related to water damage.
Most insurance companies now rely on highly specialized services that can perform trace and access using advanced techniques that keep structural property damages to a minimum, so this could prove the most cost effective course of action.

The situation around trace and access cover may sound a bit tricky and even bordering unscrupulous, but you will be wise to see it as a cautionary tale: When you’re looking for landlord insurance, or buy-to-let insurance of any kind, you must pay close attention to the exact phrasing of your insurance policy.

Clear away any doubts?

You must be mindful to specifically ask any questions that are needed to clear away any doubts that you may have.

Always make sure to pose specific hypothetical scenarios and demand a clear answer.

In case of doubt, always ask directly for clarification, and watch out for implicit statements that could lead to confusions and imprecision that might work against your personal interests.