How do you check the insurance line on your service charge?

Why are two costs often shown as one?

The premium is what the insurer is paid. Arranging the cover is work somebody does, and it may be charged separately or folded into the management fee.

When both appear as one figure, a rise in either is invisible. Ask for them apart.

What should you look at?

Whether the sum insured changed, and whether the premium moved by more than the cover did.

Whether the policy changed — insurer, excess, or what is covered. A cheaper premium with a higher excess is not straightforwardly cheaper.

Whether your share is calculated the same way as the rest of the charge. Some developments apportion insurance differently.

Whether the figure includes anything besides buildings cover — terrorism, engineering inspection, directors' cover. These are legitimate and are worth naming.

For the rest of the charge, see what is in your service charge. If the fee and the premium are printed as one figure, what the management fee covers separates them.

What share of a service charge is insurance?

In the Property Institute's TPI Service Charge Index 2026 — 2,137 professionally managed developments, more than 117,000 homes in England, Wales and Scotland — Buildings Insurance was 14.3% of the charge in 2024, 14.1% in 2025 and 13.3% of the 2026 budgets. The Financial Conduct Authority measured something else: premiums, for a different set of buildings. Its Report on insurance for multi-occupancy buildings (September 2022) found that the mean premium for mid-rise and high-rise multi-occupancy buildings in the United Kingdom — those exceeding 3 floors or 11 metres in height — increased by 125% from 2016 to 2021 across its sample, which covers no more than 15% of such buildings.

The index's report warns that "aggregated cost averages will not be representative of actual leaseholder bills", and these figures cover the index as a whole, not any one area.

What can a statement not show you?

A commission paid to a broker or an agent out of the premium does not appear on your service charge statement. It is inside a figure, not beside it.

Synclair reads the documents you hold. If something is not in them, it is not in the analysis — so if that is your question, it is one to put in writing rather than one to look for on the page.

Can you ask to see the invoices?

In England and Wales, leaseholders have rights set out in statute: to see the invoices and receipts behind the service charge, and to ask an independent body to decide whether a charge was reasonable.

This page does not explain how to use them, because that depends on your lease.

Should you stop paying while you query a charge?

What does Synclair do?

Synclair explains each line of your service charge that your documents show, including insurance where they state it, and compares it with published figures where they exist. Add earlier years and it shows how each line has changed. Anything you report about the development stays on record with its date. When something is worth raising, Synclair can draft a letter for you to check and send in your own name, and you can then record the reply and the outcome.

Only owners pay for Synclair: never managers, insurers or suppliers.

One document is enough to start. It is free for three months, and the three months begin when your first analysis is ready — not when you sign up. There is one free period for each email address.

One document is enough to start: a budget, a charge demand, a statement or year-end accounts.

Sources

• The Property Institute, TPI Service Charge Index 2026, 21 May 2026 — the report · its release
• Financial Conduct Authority, Report on insurance for multi-occupancy buildings, September 2022 — fca.org.uk

Figures checked 7 and 8 October 2026.