It’s confirmed.

I was attending to a introduction session in our office by a lady from Jardine Lloyd Thompson on their new rent protection insurance product produced by their company and QBE. The launch will be on April’s Fool (1st April 2009) opening only to Real Estate agents to sell to their Landlords.

Cost of the premium is 15% of one month of rental (excluding GST), coverage of up to 24 months of the tenancy, which sounds alot more affordable than I thought. I had the misconception that this will be a premium cut from the rental every month.

Benefit kicks in when the policy is in effect when you have a loss of rental income with the following:-

• Tenant defaulting
• Tenant absconding
• Eviction and/or Failure to surrender vacant possession
• Loss or damage to property
• Prevention of access
• Murder or suicide
• Death of tenant under sole tenancy
• Loss of rental income due to real estate agent absconding with rent paid by tenant (you’re extremely unlucky if you’re that guy)
• Legal costs
• Agents commission for replacement tenancy agreement.

It seems and sounds really good, with some catches here and there.You can only get the insurance with a new tenancy term with your property and not when your current tenancy term is in effect.

Remember, you can only get this policy through property agents, so contact your usual leasing agent for more details.

I’d advice you to visit their site (the site is down for me, try it on 1st April 2009) and download the PDFs on their policies to understand the product further. If you need any clarification, you can also contact me questions on how it works.