Insurance for an empty (sort of) property

[Andrew S.]

I'm dealing with an insurance question in San Antonio. The property consists of a SFR plus a "in-law cottage". The property is part of an estate and it will likely take a year or more to distribute the estate (I'm the executor). The SFR is currently empty and the cottage is rented. Previous insurance company doesn't want to insure the property anymore because the main dwelling is empty. What are my options? I know I could find a tenant for the dwelling and then get landlord insurance, but that is not preferred at the moment. Any thoughts?

[Michael Norris]

There is always the 2 policy method. One landlord policy on the occupied cottage + one vacant policy on the SFR with matching liability on both policies. A company like Foremost/Farmers should be able to handle that for you.

 Above you mentioned that coverage on the dwellings wasn't that important so if you wanted to keep cost down you could use the more basic DF1 policy (ask the agent down there) and market value for the dwelling coverage amount with a higher deductible and then max liability limits (probably $1 million). 

If that sounds like insurance gibberish it is... you could copy and paste all that into an email to the Foremost agent and they should be able to figure it out pretty quickly.  If they stumble hunt around until you find one who is familiar with landlord policies.

I'm not licensed for TX otherwise I'd be offering to set it up for you.