Fire in SFH Rental - Renters Insurance

[Collin Wilson]

Hi All! 2 weeks ago I received an early morning call that my SFH Rental Property caught fire. The Fire Marshal determined the Fire was caused by the tenants improperly disposing of a cigarette. The tenants confirmed that the fire started because of a lit cigarette. The Lease prohibits smoking in the property.

The Garage has extensive damage. Thankfully the actual fire was contained to the garage but we have soot/smoke damage on the main level.

The tenants are required to have renters insurance and originally provided me with their policy number and information.

I filed an insurance claim with my Landlord Insurance and the restoration company came and provided an assessment. The tenants were unhappy because the company wanted to remove and clean all of their furniture (unsure why) Additionally all of their items in the garage were considered unsalvagable.

Since that time the tenant has had two different restoration companies to the property to provide assessments. The first also advised the furniture needed to be removed and cleaned. The second advised that they weren’t able to determine 100% that the furniture had soot/smoke damage and informed the tenants that they could clean the furniture themselves.

Obviously, I have concerns with the third option as it could potentially effect my property if furniture is left inside with smoke/soot damage. The facts and the tenants behavior has started to make me question their motives. I’m questioning if the tenants simply don’t want to pay their $1,000 deductible or if they have been deceitful regarding their renters insurance. The damage to their property is well over $1,000 (Deductible) so to not file a claim would seem pretty stupid. The original insurance documents provided showed they had a claim ceiling of $50,000 for their property. They won’t come close to that ceiling.

It seems I am in a holding pattern until they figure out their insurance because the restoration company can’t start on my property until the tenants contents are removed.

I am hoping someone can point me in the right direction.

[James Mc Ree]

I recommend you take control of the process. Don't let your tenant's drive this or you will end up with the lowest cost option that may also be lowest quality. Ask your mitigation companies what should be done and do that with the tenant's insurance proceeds in which you file the claim.

I recently had a small basement fire that I thought was trivial - maybe $1,000 - $2,000 in damage. It ended up being a $40,000+ insurance claim largely due to smoke damage. Smoke gets everywhere and you often can't see it. The furniture will soak it up and every flop into the sofa will send a puff of soot into your home for as long as the furniture is there.

In my case, the insurance covered cleaning and repainting every wall and ceiling surface in the house, including the upstairs. Several ceilings had acoustic tiles that all needed to be removed/replaced as they had soot on them. They seemed their normal white just looking at them, but wiping them with a fingertip showed a slight film. I ended up with a nice house renovation.