Commercial Property Portfolio Insurance

No. On every wording read for this page the sum insured sits per building, with any-one-location sub-limits for extensions, and no wording offered a blanket figure floating across the schedule. A shortfall on one line is tested against that line alone. If a broker describes a blanket sum, ask to see the clause, because the wordings read do not contain one.

Building by building. Most wordings read apply average only once a building’s sum insured falls below 85 per cent of its rebuild value; the others use the Day One margin as the line. Headroom on a well-insured office does not rescue an underinsured warehouse on the same schedule. How the cut itself is calculated is on our commercial property insurance page.

You declare each building’s rebuild cost at the start of the year, the insurer adds an inflation margin, and the most it pays is capped at 115 per cent of the declared value on most wordings read. It protects against inflation during the year, not against a declared value that was wrong on day one. RICS guidance is a desktop review annually and a full reassessment every three years.

Up to a limit and for a period. The acquisitions clause covers a newly bought building up to £500,000 a location on four wordings read, £2 million on three and £250,000 on one. Automatic cover lasts 30 days on two; notify within 90 days on one, three months on one and six months on three; two ask only for prompt notice. One starts at exchange of contracts. Above the limit or after the period, the building is off the policy.

That line’s cover narrows after 30 consecutive days on three wordings read, one of them 60 for residential, 45 on three and 90 on one; one sets no day count. Theft, escape of water and malicious damage typically drop out unless the unit is inspected inside and out every week with a log, services are turned off except for alarms, waste and combustibles are removed and the doors are secured. The rest of the schedule is unaffected.

Yes, under one limit across the holding, for injury to other people or damage to their property arising from any scheduled building. Most wordings read add cover under the Defective Premises Act for buildings you have sold or vacated. Your own employees are employers’ liability, which is compulsory and sits on a separate section or policy.

Not under the Pool Re rules. Terrorism is excluded for commercial property on every wording read and bought back as a separate section. Pool Re’s scheme guide requires a policyholder buying terrorism cover to buy it for all of its eligible property, with limited permitted departures, so the decision is about the holding rather than the one building you are worried about.

On most wordings read, yes: sums insured are index-linked to a building cost index, monthly on three, and one will not reduce them on a falling index unless you ask. Index-linking keeps a correct figure correct; it does not fix a wrong one, which is why the reinstatement assessment on each line still matters.

A discount on the premium given in return for an undertaking to renew with the same insurer for a set period, found on one wording read. It is a real saving with a real cost: if the market moves or the insurer’s terms change, the undertaking still binds you until it expires.

Yes, in two ways. Where a building has residential leaseholders paying towards the premium, FCA rules in force since 31 December 2023 treat them as policy stakeholders: the broker must disclose its commission and cannot be paid in a way that conflicts with their interests. In England a building of 18 metres or seven storeys with two or more flats is a higher-risk building under the Building Safety Act, mixed use included.

No statute requires it. Lenders require it for every charged building, leases set out who insures and who pays, and residential leaseholders in mixed-use blocks have a statutory interest in how it is arranged. Whether cover on a single building is a legal requirement is answered in full on our commercial property insurance page.

The responsible person for each non-domestic building in England and Wales, under the Fire Safety Order, which since 1 October 2023 requires a full written fire risk assessment regardless of the size of the premises. Scotland has the Fire (Scotland) Act 2005 and Northern Ireland the Fire Safety Regulations 2010. Insurers do not enforce it, but their conditions assume it.

On four wordings read a flat felt roof must be inspected every two years, by a roofing contractor on two and a builder or surveyor on one, which applies it only once the felt is ten years old, or annually before October once seven years old on one, with recommendations carried out. One adds an excess for flat roof claims. Storm damage through a roof nobody has looked at is the claim these conditions are written for.

Per building, as a sum and an indemnity period on each line, paying the rent you cannot collect while that building is uninhabitable after insured damage. One wording read pays up to twice the item sum. A residential unit on the schedule is treated as a percentage of its building sum on one wording. Set it per line, not as a single portfolio figure.

At renewal, yes. The claims record is one record across the schedule, and a run of claims at one block is priced against every line. That is the trade for one renewal and one set of terms. Keep the record building by building anyway, because it is what a broker needs to explain it.

Yes. Additions come through the acquisitions clause automatically to its limit, or by endorsement above it; a sold building comes off by endorsement with a premium adjustment. Tell the broker before completion either way, because a building sold but still on the schedule is paying for cover it no longer needs.

A line for every building with construction, year, use, tenant and rebuild value; five years of claims across the holding; the empty units and how they are managed; the acquisitions pipeline; the lender letters and the leases. The main property type starts the form; the rest is what the broker turns into the schedule.

Because no figure would be true for you. A portfolio premium is built from the combined values, the worst building on the schedule, the vacancy and the claims record across the holding, in combinations no average captures. If we publish data of our own one day, it will carry a sample size and a date.