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Told you must take out insurance to rent this place?

This explains what contents insurance, liability cover, deposit-replacement products, guarantor services and pet cover actually do, and whether your landlord can require them where you live.

Not sure if what you've been asked to pay for is actually compulsory? Use Can my landlord make me buy this? to check what your nation's law says. See what contents insurance for renters actually covers
Common questions

The products you're most often asked to buy

Most renters run into the same handful of products at move-in or after damage. Each works differently, and the law treats them differently too.

Contents insurance for renters

Your belongings aren't covered by the landlord's buildings policy. See what a renter's own contents cover includes.

See what's covered

Accidental damage to fixtures

A broken hob or a cracked worktop can mean a deposit deduction. See what tenant's liability cover pays for.

See how a claim works

Deposit-replacement products explained

You pay a non-refundable fee instead of a deposit, but you can still owe the scheme provider for damage or arrears.

See what you're buying

Pet cover and your tenancy

Whether a landlord can require pet insurance depends on where you rent and what that nation's law says.

Check the current rules
How the tool works

Three steps, nothing submitted

You tell it where you rent and what you've been asked to pay for, and it hands you back the actual wording of the law that applies. Not sure if what you're being asked to pay for is actually compulsory? The guide on whether your landlord can require it works through that question on its own page.

  1. Pick your nation

    You tell the tool whether you rent in England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland. What a landlord can require at move-in is set out differently in each one, so the tool needs to know which law it is reading before it answers anything.

    England, Wales or Scotland

    The tool matches you to that nation's own legislation and quotes it back to you.

    Northern Ireland

    The relevant law has not been read at source, so the tool tells you that directly.

  2. Pick what you've been asked to take

    You choose the product involved, such as contents insurance, tenant's liability cover, pet cover, a deposit-replacement product or a guarantor service, and how it was put to you by the landlord or agent.

    You were told it's required

    The tool checks whether a landlord in your nation is actually allowed to make that a condition of the tenancy.

    It was offered as an alternative, for example to a deposit

    The tool checks what the law says about that kind of arrangement specifically.

  3. Read the legal position

    The tool hands back the section of the relevant Act that applies, quoted as it is written, with its section number and the date it was read. It is reading the statute for you.

    It can only be as reliable as the answers you give it and the reading behind it, so treat what comes back as a starting point for the conversation with your landlord or agent, not the final word.

Nothing you type into the tool is submitted or stored; it runs in your browser and the fields reset when you leave the page. This explains how it works, not whether a particular requirement is lawful in your own case.

What the Tenant Fees Act 2019 says about being made to buy insurance

If you've been handed an agent's pack at move-in that says you must take out a particular insurance policy before you get the keys, that instruction does not hold up in England. Section 1(3) of the Tenant Fees Act 2019 bars a landlord or letting agent from requiring a tenant to enter into a contract of insurance with a third party as a condition of granting or renewing a tenancy (legislation.gov.uk, read 30 September 2026).

Not sure if what you're being asked to pay for is actually compulsory? Use the guide to check whether your landlord can require it.

How the Act stops it

The Tenant Fees Act 2019 works by listing the payments a landlord is allowed to charge a tenant, called permitted payments: rent, a capped deposit and a short list of other specific charges. Anything asked for outside that list is a prohibited payment, and a requirement to buy insurance from a named provider falls squarely into that category. It applies to England only; the Act has no force in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, and each of those nations works from its own legislation.

What that covers, and what it doesn't

Contents insurance, tenant's liability cover and pet insurance are all contracts of insurance, so none of them can be made a condition of your tenancy in England. A landlord can still offer one, recommend one, or make a policy available alongside the tenancy agreement. What they cannot do is refuse to hand over the keys, or threaten the tenancy, because you declined to take out cover with their chosen provider.

A deposit-replacement product and a guarantor service sit outside this rule, because neither is a contract of insurance. Whether a landlord can require one of those is a separate question, with its own answer, set out in Deposit Replacement and Guarantor Services: What You're Actually Buying.

If you've been told otherwise

Where an agent's pack states insurance as a condition of moving in, section 1(3) is the line to point to. To check what the position is for a different product, or for a tenancy outside England, the tool at Can My Landlord Make Me Buy This? routes on nation and product and returns the statutory wording for your situation. It works from the text of each Act, so it can only be as current as the version it was read against, and it can get the answer wrong if the law has moved since that reading.

This sets out what the Act says. It isn't legal advice, and legislation is amended from time to time, so check the current text at legislation.gov.uk before relying on it for a dispute with your landlord or agent.

Find out whether your landlord can require it

Pick your nation and the product you've been asked to take, and it returns the relevant law, quoted with its section and the date it was read. It works from the details you give it, so check the result against the quoted text before you rely on it. If you're not sure whether what you've been asked to pay for is actually compulsory, that's exactly what it's built to answer.

Try Can my landlord make me buy this? Read what you're actually buying with a deposit-replacement product or guarantor service