Buildings insurance for shared owners and leaseholders

bpha arranges buildings insurance for the majority of our shared owners and leaseholders as a condition of your lease.

This is currently provided by Zurich Municipal; a summary of cover can be found here.

Please note that you need to make your own arrangements for contents and liability insurance.

What is buildings insurance?

Buildings insurance covers damage to the structure of your home such as the walls, roof, floors, doors and windows. It also includes damage to fixtures and fittings so fitted kitchens and bathrooms are covered too.

What is and isn't covered?

Your buildings insurance policy will cover the cost of repairing or rebuilding your home if it’s damaged by an insured peril such as fire, flood, vehicle impact or accidental damage. The summary of cover listings the insured perils can be found here.

Buildings insurance policies do not cover maintenance and / or general wear & tear problems. These are your responsibility to sort out. They also do not cover damage caused by gradual causes; eg damp. Another common exclusion is to fences; you can not claim for storm damage to these. Please note that these exclusions are standard to all buildings insurance policies and not just specific to Zurich Municipal.

Please note that you need to make your own arrangements for contents and liability insurance, as this cover is for buildings insurance only.

How to claim

You can make a claim by contacting Zurich directly; you do not need to notify bpha. When contacting Zurich, please advise them that you are a bpha shared owner / leaseholder and quote the policy number on the summary of cover. It is your responsibility to pay the excess on the policy.

From 1 April 2024 the excess for each claim is £350 apart from Escape of Water claims – £500 and Subsidence claims – £1,000.

By Phone – Tel: 0800 028 0336

Online – Through an online portal which can be found on the Zurich website

When do you need to contact bpha about your buildings insurance

Permissions – If you request permission to alter or extend your property, the insurance team at bpha will need to know as we usually need to increase the sum insured for your property to reflect the additional costs of rebuilding it in the event of a major loss.

If your home is unoccupied – Any unoccupied property is a higher risk to an insurer, so if you leave your property unoccupied for over 30 days, you must tell the insurance team at bpha so that we can advise you on the checks that will need to be carried out in order to keep the buildings insurance valid. Please note that after 60 days of unoccupancy, there are increases to the excess charged and after 120 days, some of the cover is reduced; e.g there is no cover for escape of water or malicious damage. Please see section 8 of the exclusions section on page 2 in the summary of cover for further information.

What happens to my buildings insurance when I fully staircase and am no longer a bpha shared owner?

If you are staircasing to 100% and you obtain the freehold, you will need to arrange your own building insurance from your completion date but if you are purchasing 100% of a flat, then your buildings insurance will continue under the leasehold insurance policy.