Recommendations for commercial hazard insurance for property portfolio (18 buildings)

[Bryan Bissell]

Good afternoon and Happy Labor Day Everyone,

I am a longtime browser, first time poster on this forum.  I have been dabbling in real estate on the West Bank of the Greater New Orleans area for 10+ years and I am currently entertaining the possibility of obtaining a commercial hazard insurance policy for my investment properties.  Other posts on this forum have used the term "blanket policy".

For the sake of clarity, I am specifically looking to obtain one policy with one premium that will serve as the hazard insurance policy on all of my properties.  Unfortunately, google searches, and even this forum, are not quite clear if such a product exists or is even feasible in my situation.  Also to be clear, I am not looking for an "umbrella policy" for the purpose of covering liability.  I am specifically looking to cover hazard (fires, wind, hurricanes, etc) that would satisfy a lender as some properties still have a mortgage.  

To complicate things further, several of the properties (6) were purchased in a bond for deed situation.  4 of those bond for deed situations, the seller has a mortgage.  The rest of the properties are in my name, either free and clear (6) or with a mortgage (6).  3 of the properties are doubles and one is tri-plex.

Any recommendations on the matter are greatly appreciated.  As anyone in the area is aware, insurance is a mess right now.  One of the properties was insured by Lighthouse, which went under.  The mortgage company put in place a policy (actually not at a bad yearly premium, comparatively).  Other policies are slowly being dropped by USAA as claims were made and several are still in litigation.  I have had to resort to LA Citizens in several instances and I would not consider it ideal.  

Anyhow, I look forward to reading responses.  In the near future, I would like to talk finance, deals, and expansion, if anyone is interested.  

Thank you, Bryan

[Austin James]

Yes you can group properties on a combined policy. The issue is the location of your properties. If they are older, its very possible that citizens is the only market for your wind coverage. Nobody wants older hab at the moment in general (around country), let alone Tier 1 or Tier 2 (1st or 2nd county to water) Louisiana. Those combination of factors is deadly to rates/availability unfortunately.

If the market conditions improve, you may be able to get what you are looking for but right now my guess is nobody wants your deals, or at least the wind coverage. You could potentially get somebody to group the xwind (meaning excluding wind/flood/quake etc ) and then just put all the wind with citizens.

Source- myself, I place multifamily insurance nationwide on the wholesale insurance side (my clients are insurance agents) I do mostly larger multi family