Landlord's contents: the gap between two policies

The gap

A rental property involves two insurable interests and, usually, two separate policies. The landlord insures the building. The tenant insures their own belongings. In between sits a category that belongs to neither obvious answer: the things the landlord owns but the tenant uses.

Tenancy Services closes off one side of it explicitly. Damage to furniture or other items provided under the tenancy agreement will not be covered by the tenant's contents insurance. So if your supplied dryer is destroyed, pointing at the tenant's policy is not a strategy.

What counts as a chattel

Every tenancy agreement is required to include a list of chattels — furniture, curtains and other fittings — provided by the landlord. That requirement is doing double duty: it protects both parties at the end of the tenancy, and it happens to be the inventory your insurer will want.

Typical items, even in a nominally unfurnished property:

• oven, cooktop, rangehood, dishwasher;
• washing machine and dryer, where supplied;
• curtains, blinds and other window coverings;
• carpets and floor coverings, depending on the wording;
• light fittings, heat pumps and fixed heaters;
• any actual furniture, in a furnished let.

The boundary between “part of the building” and “contents” is a wording question, not a universal rule, and it is worth checking which side your policy puts floor coverings on.

How insurers structure it

Three different approaches are visible in the market, and they are genuinely different products rather than the same thing priced differently.

As an optional extra. AA publishes that with its Landlord contents cover optional extra, it will pay the cost to repair contents or pay market value, up to the landlord contents sum insured.

Built into the landlord policy. Tower publishes cover of up to $20,000 for a rental's whiteware and window coverings within Landlord's Plus, stating on its own site that this means you will not need to take out a separate contents policy for the appliances and curtains you provide.

As a standalone policy. State sells three landlord products, one of which is Landlord's Contents — contents insurance for the furnishings and appliances tenants use, which State positions as good for rentals insured by someone else, such as a body corporate.

Those are each insurer's own published summaries, retrieved 8 September 2026. We do not tabulate them against each other, because “an optional extra with a sum insured you choose” and “a $20,000 built-in benefit” are not comparable line items. Wordings govern.

Working out whether you need it

The honest position is that this is a judgement about exposure, not a rule. Add up what you supply, at replacement cost. In many unfurnished rentals the answer lands somewhere between a few thousand dollars and rather more than the landlord expected once the heat pump and the floor coverings are counted.

Then ask the question that actually decides it: if all of that were destroyed at once, would you replace it out of cash flow, or would it hurt? If your building policy already includes a benefit like Tower's, you may find you are covered for the bulk of it and do not need anything further. A broker reading your existing wording can tell you that in about ten minutes, and telling you that you need nothing is a legitimate outcome.