A topic that Professional Housing Providers seem to discuss on a regular basis is how to make sure their tenants have renters' insurance … and … make sure that the insurance stays active.
Most of the conversations I have had seem to have the same discussion points:
- Yes, the lease requires the tenant maintain renter’s insurance
- No, we don’t police the tenants to make sure they have renter’s insurance
- No, we really don’t know how to make sure the renter's insurance is in effect
- No, we really don’t understand why renter’s insurance is a big deal
In VERY simple terms, renter’s insurance can help you remove a claim from your insurance history and probably save you money on your insurance program. If your tenants are without renter’s insurance ANY incident now becomes YOUR (the Professional Housing Provider’s) problem/issue.
As an example: you own a 4 unit, 2 story building completely leased. A 2nd story tenant decides to take a bath and starts to fill the bathtub. In the process, they become distracted and eventually decide to nap while the tub is filling. They wake up 3 hours later and step into water on their floor. They rush to turn the water off but fail to notify you that there was an incident. 4 hours later, a downstairs tenant calls you to say they have water running down their walls. 15 minutes later, the other upstairs tenant calls to say they have water thru-out their apartm ... Read More…