Landlord insurance

I use allstate for my rental property.

 

Not sure. I got the house with the intention of renting it out. I've never had normal insurance on it.

 

Texas FAIR plan. I would only recommend that as a last resort.

 

I just got it switched over and it is significantly more expensive ($$60 or so a month, as I recall?), somewhat hard to get (most larger companies don't want to do it, or if they do have it handled by a third party. Mine offered, if I'd switch other policies to them and for a premium.) and covers less than you'd think (That seems to be a feature, not a bug, in today's insurance systems).

good times.

 

I use State Farm in Minnesota and they have reasonable rates as long as you have renters. If the house goes unrented for 6 months, then I would have to get a special policy and I don't know what that would cost. I don't have the numbers in front of me and the State Farm web site is having problems, but it seems my rate for the dwelling is compatible to what it was when we were living there.

 

Web site is back up. For $200,000+ for the property and $30,000 of personal property (e.g. appliances) I pay less than $80/month.

 

I use Columbia Lloyds. I'm paying less than $70/month.

I was not happy with Texas FAIR Plan's service.

From what I understand, rental policies are cheaper than homeowners policies because they're only covering the dwelling and none of the contents. My tenant has his own rental insurance policy to cover his stuff. My policy only covers the house itself.

 

I'm surpised your coverage doesn't give some personal properrty (e.g. A/C, furnace, water heater, and appliances which may belong to you).

An interesting thing that is not covered in Minnesota is backup from the sump pump. Insurance companies assume a homeowner will be more meticulous in paying attention to the operation of the sump pump than the renters, so while flooding due to a non-working sump pump is covered for your dwelling, it is not covered for your rental property.

 

That stuff is covered. By "just the house" I meant it doesn't cover any of my tenant's things. If the whole house was robbed and everything of his was taken, my policy wouldn't cover any of it. That's why it's cheaper than a standard homeowners policy.

From what my agent told me, policies for rental properties have much less risk than normal policies. I was surprised to learn that, but if you think about it, a house is much more likely to get robbed than burn to the ground.

 

You're right, 10k worth of personal property should be listed but a lot of agents don't bother to add the contents to these types of policies.

In Texas there are a couple different form policies that these policies are written on: TDP-1 & TDP-3. TDP-1 are the basic policies that generally aren't replacement cost, don't cover water damage period, lost rents, foundation, and many other perils. TDP-3 are the cadillac policies that cover everything including the stuff above excluded and are replacement cost policies. Cost difference is usually only a couple hundred bucks for the better policy.

I work with companies that specialize in these policies and work with a lot of people who own rental property. Any additional questions and you can email through the board and i'll help you out.

This is also a good resource to check out the companies that are underwriting the policies. The true test is to look at 2008 to see how they performed during IKE. There are a lot of garbage companies out there that i'd avoid:

https://apps.tdi.state.tx.us/pcci/pcci_search.jsp

 

True & false at the same time. You're much more likely to experience a loss at a rental property and be dragged into a lawsuit with a rental unit. The policy you probably have is less risk to the insurance company only because the policy is very limited in what it would cover. You're assuming the liability & risk through self insuring.

Also, to protect yourself liability wise, you should extend the personal liability from your personal homeowners policy over the rental property location. You can typically get up to 500k worth of liability ($1mil with some companies) on your primary homeowners policy and then add an additional location to that policy to shield yourself liability wise from the actions of your tenant. You can bet if your tenant has a dog bite some kid you're getting sued too. Extending liability is like $30 bucks a year and generally the rental units include no liability or very very little.

 

It is hurricane & reinsurance treaty related. Ameriprise doesn't have the insurance in place it needs to be able to cover you there. There are other options though.