Axa Insurance UK now offers equipment breakdown cover to all commercial real estate customers, rather than restricting its availability to certain risks. The move enables all customers to decide if they want to include plant and machinery cover as part of their buildings insurance policy.

Cover is applicable to a wide selection of equipment ranging from boilers and air conditioning systems to forklift trucks and wind turbines. The insurance provides cover for damage resulting from a failure within the building with limits starting at £25,000 and rising to £100,000. The standard limit of cover per incident is £250,000.

Sarah Mallaby, chief distribution officer and mid-market trading director at Axa UK, said: “We’ve decided to enhance our real estate proposition by making this cover available to all new and existing customers with immediate effect.

“Previously it’s been offered on only a limited number of policies, mostly in the London real estate market, so this is a big step forward in aligning across our UK commercial business and adding value to the cover we offer.”

In addition, Axa has increased the declared value limit for residential properties on its digital landlord product to £10m. The increase also applies to some commercial premises including offices, hairdressers and beauty salons. Other selected commercial properties have seen the limit increased from £5m to £7.5m

In June, Axa increased the possible number of properties covered by its landlord product from 10 to 20.