Commercial landlord insurance for your strata unit.

Commercial strata insurance is the body corporate's policy for the common property and, on most commercial plan formats, the building. It usually stops short of your fit-out, air conditioning that serves only your lot, your own liability, and loss of rent above the scheme's cap. We review both layers, the body corporate's policy and yours, as standard.

Paying towards the strata premium through your levies does not mean the scheme policy has insured everything you own inside the lot.

What belongs on each policy depends on ownership, the lease, the strata plan, state rules and the policy wording.

In Queensland, if your lot is a detached building on a standard format plan, insuring the building itself may fall to you. Your survey plan and community management statement (the scheme's registered rules) show which, and the strata manager can tell you. Ask them for the current certificate of currency (the insurer's proof the policy is in force). Ask for its schedule too (the list of what is insured and for how much).

Commercial strata insurance covers the scheme. For landlords of whole buildings as well as strata units, our commercial landlord insurance page explains the wider cover for the property, rent and the owner's liability. Our commercial property insurance page explains the wider choices for owners and tenants.

Your fit-out is usually yours to insure: partitions, cabinetry, kitchens, cool rooms, signage, mezzanines, and floor, wall and ceiling coverings. So are improvements bought with the lot. Check what belongs to you and what belongs to your tenant.

Some scheme policies cover lot owner improvements. On most of the strata policies we arrange, that cover pays only once the building's own sum insured has been exhausted. Exhausted means the whole building figure has been spent, so it happens only in the largest losses. In an ordinary claim on those policies, your fit-out is paid by your own insurer or not at all. Another wording can cover the owner's fixtures and fittings without waiting for the building sum insured to be used up, subject to its limits.

On another, an improvement counts only if it was installed within the three years before the last renewal or the last insurance valuation, whichever is earlier. That benefit is capped at $300,000 a lot or less. An older or larger fit-out can fall outside it, wholly or in part, and that part rests on your own cover.

We check that extension before relying on it for your fit-out.

The lease usually says. The policies show whether anyone actually insured it.

On one wording, broken glass is covered only if the scheme bought that separate section. On a shopfront scheme we check the schedule shows it. In the leases we hold, glass appears twice: once as something to insure, and again as a duty to replace broken glass. Insuring the glass pays for it. The lease still says who must replace it. Where a lease asks for glass cover, it is generally inexpensive.

Usually you insure the air conditioning. In Queensland, a system that serves one lot is not part of the scheme's building, even when the unit sits on the roof. Most commercial strata wordings we arrange also write it out of what the scheme insures. The lease decides whether you or your tenant looks after the system. If the lease puts the system on you, or says nothing, and nobody holds breakdown cover, a failed unit comes out of your pocket. Where the lease makes you responsible, insure the unit on your lot owner policy for its full replacement cost. Put breakdown cover on it too, just as the owner of a whole office building would.

Your solicitor can tell you what your lease's damage and destruction clause means for your rent. Commercial lease insurance requirements covers what a lease usually asks each side to hold.

Only up to a cap. On the wordings we place, a strata scheme's policy carries a capped loss of rent benefit for lot owners. The cap is a set limit, usually a percentage of the building sum insured. It is commonly paid until the lot is re-let after an insured loss. That one cap is shared by all the lots for the same event. Rent above it needs your own landlord cover. The cap is set when the scheme is placed, and lifting it beyond that is the insurer's call on that risk.

On at least one of those wordings, the scheme pays less where you hold rent cover yourself. Your own limit and period then carry more of the loss.

Your landlord policy works differently from the scheme's. Its indemnity period is the maximum time it can pay covered loss of rent after insured damage. We strongly recommend 24 or 36 months, depending on you and your building. Our minimum is 18 months. The rent figure on it should be your tenant's annual rent excluding GST but including the outgoings you are entitled to recover under the lease, because gross and net rent are a long way apart. More in our loss of rent guide.

Your own policy usually pays first. Your insurer then recovers from the tenant's public liability policy if the tenant was responsible under the lease and liable at law. That recovery can take a year or two, so you don't want to rely on it.

It is written for the body corporate and the common property, so it does not fully protect you. Some wordings give lot owners limited protection as owners, but none replaces your own cover. A visitor tripped in a car park on the way to a tenant's shop, and only the landlord's own liability policy responded. The full story is on Property Owners Liability.

From our book of commercial strata lot owner policies, the median premium for fit-out, loss of rent and the lot owner's own liability together was $1,412 a year, all up including fees, as at October 2026, with half of those owners paying between $1,098 and $1,757.

Your own lot owner policy sits beside the scheme's. That median is for the lot owner's cover, not the scheme's building policy.

On a policy we look after, our specialist claims manager takes the claim up with the insurer, and your broker stays involved. One event can damage the scheme's building and your fit-out. We check the damaged items against the scheme's policy and your own cover to work out which insurer should handle each part. The insurer makes the decision, and we press for what the policy and the evidence support.

We own a commercial strata unit at Eagle Farm, once one of our offices, so we know strata insurance from the owner's side. On your lot, we check:

• Scheme cover. Building sum insured, valuation date, expiry and key extensions. We can help you get the scheme's certificate of currency.
• Your lot. Your fit-out and improvements, plant serving only your lot, the rent figure and period, and your liability limit, checked against what the scheme's policy leaves with you.
• Your lease. What it makes you insure, what it leaves with your tenant, and whether the policies match it.