Freehold insurance means two quite different things depending on what the freehold is. The freehold of a house you live in is simply your home, insured as a home. The freehold of a building divided into flats is an investment held subject to leases, and the insurance obligations come from those leases rather than from ownership. Most searches for this phrase are about the second.
A house freehold: nothing special
If you own the freehold of a house and live in it, you buy home insurance. If you let it, you buy landlord insurance. The freehold title is not itself an insurance category, and there is no separate product for it. Owners sometimes look for one because a conveyancer used the word, and there is nothing to find.
A block freehold: an obligation to somebody else
Where flats are let on long leases, the freeholder is usually obliged by each lease to insure the building on stated terms and to recover the premium through the service charge. That is a contractual duty owed to every leaseholder, and it defines the cover rather than leaving it to the freeholder's preference.
What the block freeholder has to insure
The structure and common parts on a full reinstatement basis. Property owners liability for the common parts. Employers liability if anybody is employed there. Loss of rent or alternative accommodation where the leases require it. Terrorism where lenders expect it. Engineering inspection for a lift, which is a statutory inspection regime rather than an option.
A ground rent freehold with no obligations
Occasionally a freehold reversion carries no insuring obligation because the leases put it on the leaseholders. In that case the freeholder insures nothing and should check that somebody else actually is, because an uninsured building is the freeholder's problem too once it burns down.
Questions people ask about freehold insurance
Is there a product called freehold insurance?
Not as such. The freehold of a house is insured as a home or as a let property; the freehold of a block is insured under the obligations the leases impose.
Does owning the freehold mean I must insure?
Where flats are let on long leases, almost always, because the leases say so. There is no statutory duty.
Who pays for it?
The leaseholders, through the service charge, subject to the reasonableness tests that apply to service charges.
What if the leases put insurance on the leaseholders?
Then the freeholder insures nothing but should check that somebody actually is, because an uninsured building is the freeholder's problem as well.