Keeping Your Rental Property Properly Insured
With the steadily increasing number of foreclosures and the continued stagnation of the economy, more people are turning to renting a place to live in rather than buying a home. With this in mind, a large number of people are investing in rental properties as a solid way to make a healthy profit. If you have invested in rental homes or an apartment building, you must be sure that you not only have the right building insurance coverage, but that the insurance you have provide you with the appropriate coverages.
As you do your research you will find that building insurance differs somewhat from the standard type of homeowners insurance in what it does and does not cover. In part this is because when you own a rental property, you have a different set of liabilities to worry about as compared to when you are actually living in the home yourself. Your responsibility is to insure the structure itself and you have absolutely no liability for the possessions of your tenants or providing insurance coverage for them.
Because of this lack of liability, you are going to need different insurance coverages that are there solely to protect yourself and the building you have. Rental property insurance is intended to cover damage to the structure and anything in it that you might own; it is not intended to provide any form of coverage for your tenants’ possessions. If your tenants want to have their property covered, they are going to purchase their own renter’s insurance.
Rental property insurance is a form of building insurance that is designed to provide you with coverage for a variety of situation and problems that can occur over the life of your ownership of the property. In essence this type of insurance will provide you with coverage against occurrences such as fires, some forms of flooding and accidents that you could not plan for yet do happen from time to time.
The types of coverages are based in part on what is required by law in your particular state or city and in part by what you want to have covered. The most basic policies cover the structure against accidental damages such fires etc. You can add a policy rider that will cover damages that are done by a tenant as well. You may find that this rider alone can save you many thousands of dollars as there are many tenants who simply do not believe in taking care of a rental property.
This insurance will cover things such as damage to the interior walls, carpeting, appliances and interior décor. You have to remember that every day that your rental property sits unoccupied because the previous tenants left it a shambles, you are losing money. Having an insurance policy in place to cover the cost of these repairs can help you get your rental property back up to snuff and rented out again as soon as possible only makes good business sense.
You can also add coverage for the contents of the structure that you as the landlord own. For example if you are renting a fully furnished unit and a fire occurs, all of the property inside the building that you own will be covered in addition to the actual structure itself. Again this type of coverage can be a very important part of keeping you rental property on the market and ready to go as quickly as possible.
Finally, you should not own any type of rental property with having a liability insurance policy in place to protect you financially should one of your tenants or their guests become injured due to negligence on your part or that of one of your employees. You must realize that should realize that if anyone does get hurt on your rental property, you can be sued in court and be held liable for the cost of their medical care and in many cases much more. If you do not have this type of coverage you could stand to lose your rental property and far more by the time their lawyers are done.
If you are in the market for rental property insurance, you will need to spend some time doing your research to find out what coverages you need and which ones you are required to have by law. Once you know what you need, you can contact the Building Insurance Experts and we can help you get the coverages you need at the lowest possible prices so that your rental properties will be properly protected.
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