As a landlord do you require renters to carry rental insurance?

[Gary Schiefelbein]

As an insurance agent and a landlord I am curious to see if any of my fellow landlords require their tenants to carry insurance as part of their lease agreement.  Since I only own a few properties I have never made this a requirement of my lease.  However I have benefited as a landlord from my renters carrying a rental insurance policy.  I had a renter who set their lampshade on fire in one of the bedrooms. Don't ask me how as I don't really believe the story they fed me.  But anyway, it burned part of the dry wall and charred some of the carpet.  Because they had renters insurance their company came in, did an estimate and wrote me a check for the damages and repairs.  It saved me having to take out of pocket to fix the place, and the hassle of trying to recoup the cost of the damages from the renters.  

As I work to grow the number of rental properties I own its seems like a reasonable addition to the lease as a requirement. I could require the tenant to list the company/LLC as a named insured on the policy with the agent. That way if the policy gets canceled I would be notified by the insurance company.

Interested to hear thoughts on this.  Thanks 

[Katie Stewart]

Gary, I totally agree that any landlord should require renter's insurance! At the apartment complex that I worked at, we had the entire downstairs of a town home flood during the winter due to a burst pipe. Unfortunately the office staff hadn't been very diligent about requiring proof of renter's insurance from our residents this year so we ended up having to cover a majority of the costs. Definitely a learning experience for our office staff!