Is rental house insurance different than owner-occupied insurance? Is the premium higher or lower?
Right now my rental is still carrying the owner-occupied insurance (I used to live there, just moved out and will have tenants coming in next week) but now I need to switch over to landlord insurance.
Can someone give some specifics about this? I dont’ know too much about it.
Mindi,
Yes, landlord insurance is different that homeowner’s insurance. In fact, your homeowner’s insurance likely won’t cover the property if the property is a rental. Landlord insurance not only covers the property as a rental, it usually also provides landlord liability. I use Foremost Insurance. You can find them at www.ForemostInsurance.com.
Good Luck,
Mike
I’ve found the prices of dwelling policies (tenant occupied, aka DP3 policies at least in my experience) vary wildly. After a recent extensive search and revamp of insurance on my 2 SF rental townhomes, my rates dropped from $850/year each to $450/year each and I got much better coverage (went from cash value to replacement cost and upped the liability from $300K to $500K). The insurance company was Selective Insurance, an A+ rated company.
I learned my lesson, to REALLY shop around, not just make a token “get 3 quotes” effort.
jmd_forest
When I turned my home into a rental my premium went up 50% and only covers liability, fire and 5k in any personal property!
If you want to see coverage shrink and premiums go up just file a claim.
We filed claims on all roofs last year due to a major hailstorm. 70% of the roofs in town were damaged or destroyed.
All our roofs but one had damage. After the replacement roof checks were issued, I received notices from Colonial General Insurance, our carrier. that hailstorm deductible is now $2500/roof. That’s $2500 on a 500 Sq. Ft. cottage, as an example. So there is no coverage, that’s more than the cost of a roof.
So I am looking for other insurance. Some companies declared it a disaster, Farmers Insurance elected not to. If it is a disaster, apparently they don’t raise your premium. If they decide NOT to call it a disaster, they can raise premiums just like they do for people who file on every little thing.
Still have 1 complex of roofs to complete. It has been a huge job filing all those claims, getting bids, supervising, etc. Now I may have to sue a roofer due to not completing the job in more than a year. We got $70K or so in roof checks. It has been a big hassle but almost all roofs are newly done.
Old-timers here never pay for a new roof. They say that a huge hailstorm happens every 15 years or so. So just file a claim.
Furnishedowner