The average cost of landlord insurance is one of the most searched and least useful figures in this market. Averages published by comparison sites are averages of the policies people happened to buy, which is a different thing from what a policy costs: they mix flats with houses, professional lets with student houses, buildings only cover with full packages, and postcodes with and without flood risk.
What a published average is actually an average of
The quotes accepted through one channel, for the mix of properties that channel attracts, on whatever sections those buyers selected. Change any of those and the number moves. A site whose users are mostly single flat landlords will publish a lower figure than one whose users hold portfolios, and neither number describes your property.
What varies so much that averaging destroys the information
The rebuild cost varies by an order of magnitude across the housing stock. Tenant type moves the premium by a large multiple. Flood and subsidence history change availability, not just price. And the section list differs between quotes so much that two policies with the same premium can be barely comparable. Averaging across all of that produces a number true of nothing.
What you can usefully compare
Your own renewal against three fresh quotes on the same section list. That comparison is real, takes half an hour, and tells you something an average never can. Repeat it annually, because the market moves and insurers' appetite for particular tenant types moves faster than their headline pricing.
The figures this site does publish
The starting prices UK insurers print on their own pages, quoted verbatim with the cover they refer to, and recorded as not published where an insurer prints nothing. That is a different claim from an average: it is what particular insurers say, on the record, rather than an arithmetic mean of things that were never alike.
Questions people ask about average cost of landlord insurance
Why will nobody give me an average price?
Because the inputs vary so much that an average is true of no property. Rebuild cost, tenant type, postcode and the section list each move the premium more than the difference between insurers does.
Are comparison site averages wrong?
They are accurate about what they measure, which is the policies bought through that site. They are not a prediction for your property.
How do I get a real figure?
Three quotes on an identical section list, compared against your renewal. Half an hour, once a year.
What figures does this site publish instead?
The starting prices insurers print on their own pages, quoted verbatim with the cover they apply to, and recorded as not published where an insurer prints none.