Property Manager Insurance
Perth, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane & Canberra

A property management business can have several roles within the same portfolio. Explain whether you arrange maintenance, collect rent, manage short stays, oversee commercial premises, conduct inspections or supervise works. A broker needs to understand who makes decisions when a landlord cannot be contacted and whether your team can authorise urgent expenditure. Include services performed through related entities and any properties managed outside your usual area. The number of doors managed is useful context, but it does not describe differences between a residential tenancy, a busy retail property and a building with substantial repair work underway.

Consider the information and property entrusted to your team. Master keys, alarm codes, access cards, tenant identification documents and payment instructions create different exposures from office furniture. Describe how staff check a request to change a landlord’s bank details, who can release keys to contractors and how access is withdrawn when a staff member leaves. If you provide recommendations about maintenance priorities or contractor suitability, explain that work separately. Ask how professional services, public liability, money, fidelity and cyber arrangements would apply to the actual activity, including any relevant restrictions concerning property in your care.

Bring a representative management authority, landlord instructions and a recent maintenance file to the insurance discussion. The useful detail is the sequence of responsibility: who reported the defect, who assessed urgency, who approved work and who followed up. Keep the contractor’s scope and the landlord’s decision together so a future reader can understand the file. An insurance certificate from a contractor provides limited information; ask how the contractor’s activities and your contractual responsibilities have been considered. A broad promise in a management agreement should be checked against the available insurance wording before relying on the cover.

Portfolio records should distinguish ownership from management responsibility. Your business may own the office fit-out while landlords own buildings and tenants own improvements or contents. List any common property, storage areas or vacant premises for which you have responsibilities. Review how inspection photographs are dated, how notices and instructions are retained, and whether software exports remain accessible after changing platforms. For larger portfolios, a sample of actual agreements can reveal inconsistent insurance clauses. Discuss those differences with the broker and obtain legal advice where the interpretation of a lease, indemnity or management authority is uncertain.

If a landlord alleges that delayed maintenance caused a loss, preserve the original correspondence, work orders, inspection records and photographs. Build a factual timeline without rewriting the underlying file. Identify the first report, any urgent action, the decisions made and the people involved. Pass the allegation to the relevant insurer or broker promptly and check the policy’s notification process. Avoid assuming that a complaint is too small to matter because the claimant has not yet quantified the loss. Keep customer communications practical and courteous while seeking guidance on admissions, settlement offers and legal correspondence.

Before renewal, review changes in portfolio composition as well as revenue. A move into strata, commercial management, short-term accommodation or project supervision may introduce work absent from last year’s description. Update staff responsibilities, claims information, client money arrangements and significant contracts. Also consider how you would continue receiving maintenance reports if the property management platform failed or the office became unavailable. An accessible contact list, authority matrix and secure copy of critical records support continuity. Insurance options should then be considered against the documented operation and policy terms, rather than the assumption that every property management service is treated alike.