Belinda Bagnall from Residentsline discusses the importance of ensuring your communal areas are correctly insured.
With all of the insurance requirements entrusted to Property Managers and Residents’ Management Companies, it can be easy to overlook the communal areas of your estate.
If you have outbuildings, grounds, private roads or if you’re looking after a gated estate, you’ll need to make sure that everything within your remit is covered.
Here’s we’ll be explaining how Residentsline can help make sure you’ve got all your bases covered.
Gated Estates and Private Roads
Gated Estates are very popular due to their security advantages and the privacy they offer to occupants. They also tend to offer leaseholders access to facilities such as gyms, swimming pools and other sports facilities.
Managing this kind of estate brings with it a very specific set of challenges in terms of maintenance and insurance. It’s true that gated estates experience fewer security issues than their street-side counterparts, but specialist insurance is certainly needed to cover the varying circumstances that only come from managing communal areas.
As property insurance specialists, we’re fully aware that one standardised policy does not fit all- that’s why we have tailor-made our Roads and Private Estates Insurance to cover you against your responsibility for communal areas within the estate.
What Exactly is Covered?
The full policy wording is available to read here, but in essence, our policy is designed to protect you against a huge scope of unforeseeable and accidental incidents such as:
- Storm damage to your fences
- A delivery vehicle hitting your gates
- A fire destroying your bin store
- A visitor sustaining an injury after tripping on uneven paving
The policy covers accidental damage to communally owned property, as well as including Employers Liability and Property Owners Liability cover.
Material damage is included as standard, insuring your estate against damage to outbuildings and any other structures within the grounds such as:
- Car parks
- Car ports
- Lampposts
- Street furniture
- Roads
- Pavements and paths
- Gates
- Fences
- Bin stores
- Playground equipment
- Landscaping
- Fixed fuel oil and liquid petroleum tanks
- Underground services, septic tanks, cesspits and pumping stations
This cover is provided on a ‘no sum insured’ basis and the maximum payable under this policy for any one period of insurance is capped at £100,000.
The Employers Liability element protects you against your legal liability towards accidents or injuries happening to employees working on the estate. Maintenance staff, cleaners and gardeners can all be included.
The policy also includes Property Owners Liability as you may well have a responsibility for an un-adopted road, or you may be lucky enough to enjoy the benefits of having a gym, tennis court or swimming pool on your grounds. With these benefits comes the responsibility to protect those that own, use or visit these facilities.
The Limit of Indemnity for these covers is £10,000,000. We also recommend that you consider our optional extras: Legal Expenses Cover and Directors and Officers Liability Insurance.
What Can I Claim For?
Our Private Roads and Gated Estates Insurance is designed to be as all-encompassing as possible. Below are just a few of the costs you can potentially claim for under the policy:
- Architects and professional fees
- Removal of debris
- Claim preparation costs/fees
- Clearing of drains
- Emergency costs of minimising losses
- Government fees, contributions or imposts
- Legal fees
- Storm damage to gates and fences
- Temporary protection
- Tsunami damage
- Workmen fees
Why Choose Residentsline?
We know how important a comprehensive insurance policy is- no matter what type of property you have. Gated estates (and the shared property within them) aren’t massively common, so it’s not surprising that they require a bespoke policy to achieve full insurance coverage. Our policy is tailored specifically to these property types, giving you peace of mind that you’ll be covered against the unexpected, no matter what.
For a quote, you can give our friendly, knowledgeable team a call on 0800 281 235 or you can email us at info@residentsline.co.uk or request a quote online. We’ll aim to get your quote back to you within two hours.
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