Apartments, units and body corporate
Somebody else insures the building. That covers less of your position than most apartment landlords assume, and the gaps are the expensive ones.
The short version
- Body corporate cover is aimed at the building. It is not aimed at your chattels, your rent or your landlord liability — but what yours actually covers is a document you need to read.
- State sells a standalone Landlord’s Contents policy specifically for rentals where the building is insured by someone else, such as a body corporate.
- Loss of rent risk is unchanged by who insures the building.
- Your tenancy disclosure duties are unchanged too — including stating the excess of any relevant policy.
- The 2026 meth thresholds apply the same way; the complication is access and control, not the rules.
What the body corporate does and does not do
Owning a rental in a unit-titled building changes who insures the structure. It does not change the fact that you are a landlord, and it is the landlord exposures — not the building — that a body corporate policy was never written to touch.
The market recognises this openly. State sells a Landlord's Contents policy and describes it on its own site as contents insurance for the furnishings and appliances your tenants use, positioned as good for rentals insured by someone else, like a body corporate. That product exists because the gap is real and common.
The four things still on you
1. Your chattels
The oven, the dishwasher, the heat pump, the curtains, the carpets depending on the wording. Yours to insure, and not covered by your tenant's policy.
2. Your rental income
If the unit becomes uninhabitable after an insured event, your rent stops. The body corporate is insuring a building, not your cash flow. Loss of rent is its own subject.
3. Your liability as a landlord
Claims arising from your position as the owner and landlord of that unit are yours.
4. The excess
Body corporate excesses on larger buildings can be significant, and who bears them depends on the rules and the policy. This is worth establishing in advance rather than during a claim — and it matters doubly because your excess is the figure that caps what you can recover from a tenant for careless damage, and the figure you are required to disclose in the tenancy agreement.
Your tenancy obligations do not change
None of the disclosure duties soften because someone else holds the building policy. You still have to state in every new tenancy agreement whether the property is insured and the excess amount of any relevant policy, still have to say the policy is available on request, and still have to update the tenant if it changes. The full duty is here.
Where an apartment landlord has to think a little harder is which policy the tenant is actually being told about, and what excess figure is the relevant one. That is a good question to put to a broker rather than to guess at.
Before you buy anything
Get the body corporate policy and read what it covers, where the boundary between building and unit falls, and what the excess is. Then work out what is left. In a lot of cases the answer is a smaller and cheaper policy than a standalone house landlord would need — which is a good outcome, and one you can only reach by reading the first document before buying the second.
Questions people actually ask
- Do I need landlord insurance if the body corporate insures the building?
- The body corporate policy covers the structure. It does not cover your chattels, your rental income, or your liability as a landlord. State sells a landlord's contents-only policy positioned exactly for rentals insured by someone else, such as a body corporate, which tells you something about how the market sees the gap.
- What does a body corporate policy usually cover?
- Broadly the building structure and jointly owned property. What it does not reach is everything inside your unit that is yours, and everything about your position as a landlord rather than as an owner. Read the body corporate policy rather than assuming — the boundary between "building" and "unit" varies.
- Who pays the body corporate excess?
- That depends on the body corporate rules and the policy, and it can be a substantial figure on a large building. It is one of the specific questions worth asking before you assume the building side is fully handled.
- Does loss of rent still apply to an apartment?
- The risk certainly does — if your unit is uninhabitable after an insured event, your rent stops in exactly the same way. Whether you have cover for it depends on whether you hold a landlord policy of your own, because the body corporate policy is not insuring your income.
- Is the meth regime different for apartments?
- The thresholds and duties under the 2026 regulations apply to rental properties generally. The room-by-room basis of assessment applies the same way. The practical complication in an apartment is that decontamination and access involve a building you do not solely control.
Where this comes from
Product positioning from State's landlord insurance page, retrieved 8 September 2026. Tenancy obligations from Tenancy Services (MBIE) under the Residential Tenancies Act 1986. We have not stated what any particular body corporate policy covers, because that varies building by building and we have no way to verify yours.
Get this looked at properly, by someone who does it for a living
Tell us about the property and we will put you in front of a registered local broker who places landlord risks. They will tell you what the wordings really say — including where you are already covered and do not need to spend anything. No sales pitch, no hard sell.
Free to you. We are paid by the broker only if you take out a policy — it does not change your premium.