The majority of public houses in the UK are owned by the large breweries or pubco’s. They tend to lease each property to individual tenants. Hence the phrase, tenanted public house.
In the terms of these leases, which are becoming less onerous thankfully, the building owner places certain obligations upon the tenant as regards arranging cover.
It is usually the responsibility of the incoming tenant to arrange their own pub insurance which covers the business contents, or assets, stock, liabilities and fixed glass and sanitary ware.
It is the responsibility of the owners to arrange commercial building insurance for the physical structure or “bricks and mortar”. In the terms of the lease though the tenant has to pay for the insurance. We do get asked whether we can offer a better quote for the buildings than the landlord has arranged. In nearly every case, because we consider each quote on it’s merits, we can beat the existing terms.
Whilst this will offer a saving to the tenant, they can only arrange cover if the landlord agrees. The owner does not want to say yes, you can arrange cover and then find out 6 months later that you have forgotten to pay and a huge fire claim goes unpaid.
The way around this is, if the landlord agrees, to get their interest noted on the policy as the beneficial owner. Therefore, the policy will not be cancelled (if this has to happen) without the landlord receiving written notification of this. Thereby allowing them the option of getting their own policy in force.