How Much Does Commercial Landlord Insurance Cost in Australia?

Quick answerThere is no single price. A commercial landlord policy is three separately rated covers: the building, the rent you lose while it is repaired, and your liability as owner. What your tenant does inside moves the price most. If you lease out a commercial building, ring us on 07 3292 1111 with your building, lease and tenancy.

Written by Daniel Roussounis, Account Director · 18 min read · Reviewed by William Paull, Co-Founder & Account Director

You will find plenty of pages that answer this question with a table. Those tables give you an answer. They do not give you a correct one, and a commercial landlord who budgets off one is guessing with someone else's building.

Where we do put numbers on this page, they are quotes we placed ourselves on real buildings on a real day, with the construction type and the excess named against each one. They show how the pricing behaves rather than what yours will be. Five of them are further down.

Want the building-side numbers? Our companion guide on what commercial building insurance costs carries the real regional figures and the seven drivers that move a building premium anywhere in Australia.

What are you actually paying for in a commercial landlord premium?

Quick answerThree sections, each with its own sum insured and its own rating. The building section pays to rebuild the structure at today's cost. The loss of rent section replaces the income while that rebuild happens. The property owners liability section defends and pays when someone is hurt in connection with the property. They are priced independently, which is why a landlord's total can move even when the building has not changed.

The sum insured is a rebuild figure, not a market value and not a purchase price. Market value and purchase price both include the land, and land does not burn down. Setting the building section against either of those numbers puts the premium and the payout on the wrong basis at the same time. There is a third way the number goes wrong, and it comes from outside. A lender asks for a sum insured above what the building would cost to rebuild. But a building policy pays the rebuild cost up to the sum insured, and does not pay out a loan, so premium spent above the rebuild figure buys cover that cannot be claimed. What we can do is give you the rebuild figure in writing. What you agree with your lender is between you and the bank. What insurance is required on a commercial building sets out the rest of what a lender asks for.

Loss of rent has two dials, and both are yours. How much it pays each month, and how many months it keeps paying, which is called the indemnity period. What has to happen before it pays, and what it does not cover, is on loss of rent insurance for a commercial property. Our commercial landlord's insurance guide sets out how to size both, including two real Consolidated Insurance Brokers claims where each dial was tested. Our business interruption page covers what the indemnity period does to the price.

Property owners liability is a small part of the bill and the one we most often find wrong. For a building owner, $20 million is the limit we test as standard and $10 million is the lowest limit we place. In our experience the property owners liability section usually runs somewhere between $450 and $900 a year at a $10 million limit, and between $500 and $1,100 at $20 million. It depends on the tenancies and what the tenants do. In our experience the difference between the two limits is normally $50 to $150 a year, depending on the occupations of the tenants and the type of commercial building, and usually at the higher end where the building is a strip mall or an arcade. That is what doubling the limit costs, against an exposure that is not measured in hundreds. The only way to know your own number is a quote against your actual risk. The full mechanics, including why your tenant's liability policy will not defend you, are on our property owners liability page.

Why your tenant's trade decides your price, and not yours

Quick answerAn insurer prices the building around what happens inside it. As a landlord you do not run that activity, your tenant does, so the biggest single influence on your building premium sits with someone else. A bookkeeper and a commercial kitchen in identical sheds are genuinely different risks. The same landlord can pay two different prices for the same building across two different tenancies.

An underwriter is not pricing a floor plan. They are pricing the likelihood and the size of a claim, and what drives both is the activity inside the walls. Deep frying, spray painting, welding, hot work, flammable stock, high foot traffic: each of those changes the fire and damage picture, and each of them belongs to your tenant, not to you. Insure a shell with a bookkeeper in it, then re-let it to a takeaway shop. The correct price for that building has changed even though you have not touched it.

The occupation on your policy has to describe what is actually happening in the building today. Say your schedule still calls the tenancy an office and it has been a workshop for two years. You have a policy priced against a risk that is not there. That cuts in both directions. You may be paying for exposure you no longer carry. Far worse, you may find a claim challenged because what happened does not match what the insurer was told.

A change of tenant is a repricing event, and it is better handled before the lease is signed than after. A proposed tenant's trade can shrink the number of insurers willing to quote your building. The moment to find that out is while you are still deciding whether to sign them, not at your next renewal. A tenant who looks reliable on paper can be an expensive one to insure, and that cost is yours, not theirs.

There is a related version of this that catches owners of older industrial stock. Expanded polystyrene panel and sandwich panel construction, common in cool rooms and food processing, is one of the biggest red flags on a commercial property risk. Past a threshold, most of the insurers on the business pack panel we place through stop quoting. That is a construction issue rather than a tenant issue, but it usually surfaces because of the tenant who wants the cool room. The detail is on what commercial building insurance costs.

What moves a commercial landlord premium, and which way

Quick answerEight things, and they are not equally within your reach. Three of those you set directly, three come with the tenancy, and two are fixed by the building itself.

Vacancy. An empty building is a different risk from an occupied one, because there is nobody there to notice a leak, deter a break-in or report a small fire early. On the policies we place there is a standard allowance. On a multi-tenancy building, the insurers' own question at underwriting is whether half or more of it is empty. Once you are on cover, most of the wordings we place keep the unoccupied-building exclusion off while the building is partly occupied. Tell your insurer as tenants leave rather than waiting. The full vacancy question is answered on our commercial landlords page.

Excess. The arithmetic test that decides whether the trade is worth taking, and the claims-history check beside it, are set out on what public liability insurance costs. The mechanism is the same whatever the policy.

What did five real commercial landlords pay?

Quick answerFive real quotes Consolidated Insurance Brokers placed on 12/09/2026, on five different tenanted commercial buildings, came back between $4,013.49 and $13,884.89 a year. Each of those figures is the building section on its own, with no loss of rent, no glass and no property owners liability on top. Each is the gross amount the owner pays, including our broker fee. They are examples of what five particular owners were quoted on one day, never a price list for yours.

These are five real quotes we placed on 12/09/2026 for buildings like these, building section only, no loss of rent, glass or liability. They are indicative, not a quote. The only way to know your number is to get a quote against your actual risk.

Each figure is the most competitive insurer on our panel for that building on that day, not an average and not a market rate. The construction type and the excess are printed beside every one of them because both move the number, and a premium quoted without them cannot be compared with anything.

Now look at B and C, because that pair is the whole argument of this page. Both are $2 million buildings. Both are non-combustible. Both carry a $1,000 excess. B costs more than two and a half times what C costs. Nothing about the two buildings explains the gap. The difference is the tenant's trade: C is leased to two professional offices, and B is leased to a takeaway with a deep fryer. The landlord did not choose that price when they bought the building. They chose it when they signed the lease.

These are quotes on particular buildings on a particular day, not a tariff and not a typical price. The same building prices differently a year later or after a claim. Loss of rent and property owners liability sit on top of every figure here.

Your lease is a pricing document

Quick answerInsurance responsibility in a commercial lease follows the lease, not who owns what. Whatever the lease pushes onto your tenant comes off your policy, and whatever it leaves with you goes onto your premium. That is why two identical buildings in the same street, on different leases, can be correctly insured for different amounts at different prices.

A well-drafted commercial lease typically makes the tenant responsible for their own fitout and their own glass, and often for the day-to-day servicing of building plant such as air conditioning. Capital items commonly stay with the landlord. Servicing an air conditioning unit and replacing a failed one are two different obligations, and the gap between them is where landlords get caught. Our commercial landlord's insurance guide works through the fitout question in full, including the case where you provided the fitout but the lease makes the tenant insure it.

Who insures the fitout. A landlord-provided fitout inside the building is a sum insured on somebody's policy. If it is on yours, it is on your premium.

Who insures the glass. Shopfront glass is, in our experience, a modest and recurring claim, and which side of the lease it sits on can show up in the price. Where a lease increases what the tenant has to carry, glass and air conditioning breakdown being the usual two, that is the mechanism by which it does. A lease can transfer the obligation to insure something without transferring ownership of it, so confirming the tenant has actually arranged the cover the lease requires is worth doing.

What the lease says about outgoings. If your lease lets you recover outgoings, and an insured event stops the building earning, that recovery can stop with the rent. Should your loss of rent figure be rent alone, or rent plus recoverable outgoings? It is a lease question with a direct effect on the sum insured, and therefore on the premium. Our landlord guide covers how to work it out.

We do not insist on seeing your lease. When a client gives us a copy we read it, and we set the covers to match what it actually says rather than assuming ownership decides.

What multi-tenancy does to the number

Quick answerA building with several tenants is one policy in the owner's name, priced across a mix of activities. The premium reflects the riskiest of them. A building with a bookshop and a commercial kitchen in it is not priced like a building with two bookshops. Recovering that cost fairly through outgoings is a separate problem from insuring it. We solve that one by invoicing per tenancy, rather than handing you one bill to divide.

A landlord who can pass insurance costs through outgoings still has to decide what each tenant owes. A flat split by floor area charges the low-risk tenant for the high-risk one's exposure. Consolidated Insurance Brokers prepares individual per-tenant premium invoices for multi-tenant commercial buildings rather than issuing one bill and leaving the apportionment to you. That is a service we perform, not a legal ruling: your lease still decides what each tenant actually owes, and the policy still belongs in the owner's name.

How a broker actually builds the quote

Quick answerFrom your building, your lease and your tenant, in that order. The building figure comes from a replacement cost assessment rather than a guess. The rent figure comes from the lease, including any recoverable outgoings. The activity description comes from what your tenant genuinely does. Get those three right and every quote you receive is comparable. Get one wrong and you are comparing prices for policies that do not cover the same thing.

One: the rebuild figure. Not the purchase price, not the market value, not last year's sum insured with the insurer's automatic increase on top. On the commercial buildings that come to us after a renewal shock we usually find the sum insured sitting 30 to 40 per cent below what a rebuild would actually cost. The premium those owners were paying was calculated against the wrong number the entire time. Consolidated Insurance Brokers commissions a desktop building replacement valuation, from a registered valuer, at no cost to you and to inform the advice we give you.

Two: the rent figure and the period. From the lease. Rent, plus recoverable outgoings where the lease provides for them, over a period set for a worst case rather than an average one.

Three: the activity. What each tenancy actually does, described accurately, including anything that has changed since the policy was written.

Four: the market. On the Steadfast Client Trading Platform business pack, nine insurers subscribe to the wording. A properly presented risk can be tested across that panel, up to nine quotes, rather than renewed with one insurer. On one real Consolidated Insurance Brokers placement in August 2026, a $1 million warehouse drew nine quotes ranging from $5,000 to $20,000, on the same building, on the same day. That is one case rather than a typical result, and it is not a saving we can promise anyone, and the only way to know your number is to get a quote against your actual risk. An unshopped premium is an unverified premium. And a poor claims history does not just add a loading. It reduces the number of insurers willing to quote at all, and the cheaper markets are usually the first to withdraw, which is how a claims history raises the price twice.

Five: the sum insured against the clause. An accurate sum insured is not only about the payout. On several of the wordings we place, insuring at the full figure in a current professional valuation by an approved valuer takes the underinsurance penalty clause off your policy altogether.

On a partial loss, an underinsurance clause scales the payout down in proportion to how far the sum insured sits below what the clause requires. You receive less than the repair cost. On a total loss the full sum insured is paid, and any gap between that figure and the true rebuild cost is yours to fund. The arithmetic behind the first case is worked through on the co-insurance clause explained, and the wider picture is in our underinsurance guide.

What none of that includes is buying a thinner policy. A cheaper premium that arrives because a section was removed, a limit was cut or a sum insured was understated is not a saving. It is a deferred cost, and our page on why your commercial insurance went up shows what that looks like when the deferral matures.

Or call us on 07 3292 1111 and tell us what your tenant does; that is usually enough to start.

FAQ

How much does commercial landlord insurance cost in Australia?

There is no single figure. Your sum insured, the building's construction, its location, your tenant's trade, your claims history and your excess decide it.

What did real commercial landlords pay in 2026?

We placed five real quotes on 12/09/2026. Each one is set out on this page with its sum insured, construction, excess and tenant, because a premium without those cannot be compared.

Does it cost more to insure a building I lease out than one I occupy myself?

Not automatically, and the difference is rarely the leasing itself. Take a recent panel run of ours. Eight of the nine insurers returned the same price on the same building, whether it was presented as a property owner risk or as a business tenant risk. The building section is rated on the same things either way: construction, location, sum insured, claims history and what happens inside. What changes for a landlord is that the activity inside is your tenant's rather than yours. A landlord's policy also usually carries a loss of rent section an owner-occupier does not need in the same form. A landlord who leases to a low-hazard professional tenant can pay less than an owner-occupier running a workshop in an identical shed.

Will my premium change when my tenant changes?

It can. Insurers rate the building around the activity inside it, so a new trade changes the risk. Tell your broker as soon as a new tenancy is agreed.

How much does loss of rent cover add to the premium?

Two figures you choose: the annual rental income you insure, including recoverable outgoings where the lease allows, and how many months the cover keeps paying.

If my lease makes the tenant insure the glass and the air conditioning, do I pay less?

It can. What the lease hands to your tenant comes off your sums insured, so how much it shifts is what decides the difference.

I own more than one commercial building. Is one policy cheaper than separate ones?

Sometimes, and not always. It turns on the total sum insured and cannot be worked out on paper in advance. So we run the account as one policy and as separate policies, and put both results in front of you. Combining locations onto one policy can improve how the risk is presented, and gives you one renewal date to manage instead of several. It also aggregates the total sum insured. That can move the whole account into a different market, or past a threshold that was helping you, such as the $5 million line for the federal cyclone reinsurance pool on northern buildings, which is explained on what commercial building insurance costs. Where a portfolio is placed together we keep one account manager across the whole account rather than a different broker for each building.

What does a broker need from me to quote a commercial landlord policy?

The address and construction details of the building, a current rebuild figure or permission to commission a valuation, a description of what each tenancy actually does, your annual rental income and whether outgoings are recoverable under the lease, your claims history for the last five years, and a copy of the lease if you have it. That is the whole list.

If you have most of that in front of you, ring 07 3292 1111 and we will work through it with you on the call.

Related reading

• Commercial Landlords Insurance
• The commercial landlord's insurance guide
• What commercial building insurance costs
• What commercial property insurance costs
• Property Owners Liability
• How to calculate your building sum insured
• The co-insurance clause explained
• Underinsurance in commercial buildings
• Why did my commercial insurance go up
• Is commercial property insurance tax deductible?
• Desktop building replacement valuation
• Insurance terms glossary