Property Insurance in Kenya: What It Actually Covers

You want to insure your house. Or your shop. Or the godown you just took a lease on.

So you Google "property insurance Kenya" and every result talks about something slightly different. One is about gadgets. One is about buildings. One is full of words nobody uses in real life.

Here's the thing: no insurer in Kenya sells a policy called "property insurance". It's an umbrella word for four separate covers, each with its own name that only people inside the industry use.

This guide names all four, tells you what each one pays for, and helps you pick.

Table of Contents

• What "Property Insurance" Actually Means
• Domestic Package: The Home One
• Fire and Allied Perils: The Building One
• Burglary: The Theft One
• Political Violence and Terrorism (PVT)
• The Mistake That Costs the Most: Underinsurance
• What Property Insurance Does Not Cover
• Which One Do You Need?
• The Bottom Line
• Next Steps

What "Property Insurance" Actually Means

Property insurance is any cover that pays out when a physical thing you own is damaged, destroyed, or stolen.

That's it. It's a category, not a product.

Walk into an insurance office and ask for property insurance, and the first question back will be: property for a home, or property for a business?

Your answer decides which of these you get:

Two things to notice before we go further.

First, these are stackable. A shop owner usually needs fire, burglary and PVT together, because each one refuses to pay for the other's events.

Second, the gaps between them are where people get hurt. A fire policy does not pay for theft. A burglary policy does not pay for riot damage. Nobody explains this until the claim is declined.

Domestic Package: The Home One

Domestic Package is the residential policy. If you own or rent a home in Kenya and you want it insured, this is the one.

It's a bundle, which is why it's called a package. Most versions include:

• The building itself - walls, roof, fixtures. Only relevant if you own it.
• Contents - furniture, electronics, appliances, clothes.
• All risks - named portable items like laptops, phones and jewellery, covered anywhere, not just at home.
• Owner's and occupier's liability - if a visitor is injured on your property and sues you.
• Domestic worker cover - your house help, gardener or watchman, if they're injured at work.

If you rent, you still need this. Tenants routinely skip it because "the landlord has insurance". The landlord's policy covers the landlord's building. It does not cover your sofa, your TV, or your laptop. Those are yours to insure.

If you're a landlord, the reverse applies. You insure the structure. Your tenant's belongings are not your problem and are not on your policy.

Fire and Allied Perils: The Building One

This is the oldest and most common commercial property cover in Kenya. "Allied perils" just means the extra events bolted onto the fire policy.

Standard fire covers:

• Fire
• Lightning
• Explosion (of domestic-type boilers and gas)

Allied perils you can add:

• Storm, flood and burst pipes
• Earthquake
• Impact by vehicles or falling trees
• Riot, strike and malicious damage
• Bush fire
• Aircraft damage

The add-ons are optional, and that's the trap. People buy "fire insurance", assume everything nasty is included, and find out after a flood that they never bought the flood extension. Ask your agent to list, in writing, which perils are actually on your schedule.

It covers the building and what's inside it, but you insure them as separate amounts: the structure, then the stock, then the machinery and fittings. Get one of those numbers wrong and you underinsure that part specifically. More on that below, because it's the single most expensive mistake in this whole category.

Burglary: The Theft One

Fire policies do not pay for theft. Burglary is its own policy, and it is narrower than most people expect.

Burglary cover pays for theft involving forcible and violent entry or exit.

Read that again, because it's the whole policy. Broken lock, cut grille, smashed window, forced door - covered. A thief who walks in through an open door and walks out with a laptop is usually not a burglary claim, because nothing was forced.

That definition catches people out constantly. It's also why shops with staff-theft exposure need a different cover entirely (fidelity guarantee), not this one.

What you can insure:

• Stock in trade
• Office equipment and computers
• Furniture and fittings
• Cash, though usually only under a separate money section with its own limits

For a retail business, burglary is normally bought alongside fire. They're sold together so often that people assume it's one policy. It isn't, and if your agent only quoted you one of them, ask which.

Political Violence and Terrorism (PVT)

PVT covers damage from riot, civil commotion, strikes, political violence, and terrorism.

It exists as a separate policy for a simple reason: standard fire policies in Kenya generally exclude these events, or cover only a limited version of them under the riot and strike extension. Terrorism and political violence sit outside that.

This matters here more than it does in most markets. Kenya has an election cycle, and businesses on main roads in trading centres and city estates carry real exposure to it. Retail premises, petrol stations, warehouses and anything with a glass frontage are the usual candidates.

If you run a business with a physical premises, ask two questions:

1. Does my fire policy include riot, strike and malicious damage?
2. Do I need PVT on top of it, and what does it exclude?

PVT is priced separately and is not automatically part of any package. If nobody has mentioned it to you, you almost certainly do not have it.

The Mistake That Costs the Most: Underinsurance

This applies to every policy above, and it is the one worth reading twice.

If you insure your property for less than it's worth, the insurer does not simply pay your claim up to the limit. It pays a proportion of it.

This is the average clause, and it's in almost every property policy sold in Kenya.

The arithmetic is brutal in a partial loss. Insure a building for half its real value, and a claim for damage gets settled at roughly half of what the repair costs. You didn't buy half the cover. You bought a discount on every claim you'll ever make.

People underinsure for understandable reasons. Building costs rise and the sum insured doesn't. A shop's stock grows over three years and the policy still shows the opening figure. Nobody revalued anything because nobody was asked to.

Two habits fix it:

• Insure at reinstatement value, not what you paid. Reinstatement is what it costs to rebuild or replace today. Indemnity value deducts depreciation, and on an older building that gap is large.
• Revalue annually. Especially stock, and especially if your business has grown.

What Property Insurance Does Not Cover

Common exclusions across these policies:

There's also the excess: the first portion of every claim that you carry yourself. A higher excess lowers your premium, which is a legitimate way to cut cost on a policy you only expect to claim on for something serious.

Which One Do You Need?

If you own a business premises, the honest default is all three. Fire, burglary and PVT are cheap relative to the value of what's inside a building, and each one refuses to pay for the others' events.

The Bottom Line

Property insurance in Kenya is four policies wearing one name. The covers are not expensive. The gaps between them are.

Next Steps

1. Find your current policy schedule and read the list of perils on it
2. Check the sum insured against what it would cost to rebuild or restock today
3. If you have stock, confirm whether burglary is on the policy at all
4. If you have a physical business premises, ask for a PVT quote so you at least know the number
5. Read: Commercial Property Insurance in Kenya and Home Insurance in Kenya