Goodlord will be offering renters a market-first illness and injury insurance policy, after agreeing a new partnership with Legal & General.

The policy, which starts from £6 a month, will provide up to 12 months of rental payments if a tenant is unable to work due to an accident or illness.

If the customer is unable to work due to an accident or illness, the insurance starts paying after four weeks’ absence and will then pay a chosen monthly cash payment for up to 12 months. It does not cover unemployment.

In its recent ‘Deadline to Breadline’ report, Legal & General research revealed that 21% of renters save no money each month. This compares to just 15% of homeowners. Renters are also more likely to have limited cash reserves than homeowners on average, with the average renter having only three days of savings, based on their current daily spending rate, before their income runs out.

These findings prompted the development of this tenant-facing insurance proposition to help create balance in an insurance market that caters primarily to homeowners including landlords.

Oli Sherlock, director of insurance at Goodlord, said: “We’re constantly looking to introduce new ways to make the rental market stronger and more efficient. It’s therefore fantastic to expand our growing insurance offering.

“Working with Legal & General on this project has been a real meeting of minds; we share a vision of bringing greater security to agents, tenants and landlords: helping keep tenants in their homes, protecting landlords’ investments, and ensuring agents’ income is secure, while reducing the friction for renters that can surround accessing insurance.

“Legal & General’s deep industry expertise, coupled with our technical power, meant we have been able to create an easily accessible, simple to use product that will make a huge difference to the lives of renters across the UK.”

The new product will be available to all tenants that go through the Goodlord platform and will be able to automatically give a price for an amount of cover based on the tenant’s current rent and anticipated bill payments; information which is gathered as the tenant moves through the Goodlord tenant and referencing platform.

The whole process is digitised, with interested tenants able to opt-in to the coverage during their move-in process.

David Lundholm, director, new income streams at Legal & General, commented: “Every renter is different but all share a common goal of ensuring they are able to cover the rent for their home and bills and so we wanted to create a simple, easy to access and affordable means of providing them with insurance that works when they can’t.

“Partnering with Goodlord means we’ve been able to create a ‘digital do-it-yourself’ protection product that supports their rental customers when they need it most. Income protection doesn’t need to be complicated and our Illness and Injury Insurance helps renters take control of their cover, so they can keep paying for the things they need while they’re off work ill or injured.”