Loss of rents from water damage

[Dina Morrison]

I rent out an 1100 sq ft single family home which sustained significant water damage to the kitchen in November from leaky plumbing. Mitigation is complete and reconstruction--whole house flooring (because of open plan), and in the kitchen, countertops, drywall, plumbing, paint, and cabinets--is about to begin and is scheduled to take about 3 weeks. My tenant has been dealing with a mess, noise, inconvenience and heating a cold house since the dry wall got pulled out in November. He wants to rent an Air bnb for the construction phase and to not have to pay me rent, but my insurance agent says that the house will be inhabitable during construction so I am not entitled to loss of rent. Does this seem right? Do I have to give the tenant a deserved rent break out of my own pocket? Or how would you veteran landlords handle this? Thanks for your help.

[Nathan Gesner]

I just had this happen and State Farm is the insurer. They wouldn't cover the cost of housing the tenant somewhere else, but they will compensate for the amount of space that wasn't useable during the renovation. In our case, the living room, kitchen, dining room, a workout room, and a bathroom were inaccessible for about 10 days. We had to draw up a brief description of what was lost and why, then State Farm will compensate for that portion. This is a $2,700 rental and we're hoping to get back about $1,500 which would be enough to cover the time our tenants were in an AirBnB.