Needing Insight on Landlord Insurance

[Nicki Turnbow]

First time posting here. We finally got our first property. Figured we just needed to rip the bandaid off and get some hands on learning and we have learned A LOT. lol. My question is around insurance. We ended up closing under our own name and are having to not transfer title to our LLC. The insurance we got is just regular homeowners insurance. Do we need to cancel this and get a different type of insurance (Landlord specific)? I'm trying to better understand the differences and how to be sure we have fully protected ourselves. Thank you so much in advance! :)

[Bo Bond]

Nicki,

Yes, you need to investigate landlord insurance / policies / agents (especially as you grow your investment portfolio).  Many specialty products like the one we sell to investors require that you have at least 3+ rental properties, while other programs may not.  It seems that many investors use their personal lines insurance agents to insure their rentals until they hit about 5-10 properties.  This is likely out of convenience and being comfortable with their current agent.  If you're getting great rates, coverage, and service, why not!

However, once they reach a certain point (everyone is different), having all your dwellings under one policy makes a lot more sense from a paperwork, time management, and tracking point of view. Having 5-10+ different policies, possibly multiple carriers, different policy numbers, different levels of coverage, different deductibles, different rates, can get exhausting and become really hard to keep track of to say the least. Having one common insurance renewal date for all your rentals is a lifesaver, along with a program that can add multiple different types of rentals (SFH, duplex, triplex, quads, fix-&-flips, townhomes, small office rentals, small apartments, etc.) to your policy is a huge plus.

These are just some things to keep in mind as you grow your investment portfolio. Good luck and congrats!