Difference between home owners and landlord's insurance?

Question

Can someone please explain the difference just in basic terms?

Erika Whitten · Answer

Home owners insurance is for you in your own personal home. They cover the contents inside your home as well as the structure itself.

Landlords Insurance is insurance that an investor/landlord will get when they are renting out the property to a tenant. It will cover the structure from fire, wind/hail, etc. This policy doesn't cover the tenants contents and so they will need to get their own renters insurance.

John Mocker · Answer

Tom,

If I understand your question, you want to know if a homeowners policy will cover the situation where:

- the owner of the house purchased a homeowners policy.

- they moved out but did not inform their agent or the insurance company

- they rented the structure to a tenant who caused a fire loss

There is not an absolute answer.  The Insurance policy is a contract and needs to be reviewed for your responsibilities to notify the company.  The company's guidelines will also come into play concerning what they would have done if notified.  Some companies would immediately rewrite the coverage to a Dwelling Fire form (some cos. call that a Landlord Policy).  A few, would wait until the current policy will renew.

The next point that will come up is, would your Homeowners company write the Dwelling Fire policy if they had been notified.  If they do not write Dwelling Fire policies or if your property did not meet their guidelines for the Dwelling Fire (ie. they write 3 family owner occupied houses but do not write rented 3 family properties} that may be an additional issue.

I would recommend discussing this with your agent and an Attorney experienced in Insurance policy contracts.

Tom Westco · Answer

@Erika Whitten  Does this mean that if having a homeowners policy and tenant creates fire damage, and LandLord does not live there anymore, that the insurance company will not cover the claim for fire damage?

Difference between home owners and landlord's insurance?

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