Insurance for Multi-family Property in Buffalo

[Roberta Carraro]

Hello everyone, I’m in the process of closing my first multi-family property purchase in Buffalo, NY. It’s a 4-unit property, and I intend to owner-occupy one of the units. Insuring a multi-family is new territory and I don’t know what to look out for, I have two quotes, one for 2.6K and one for 12K. While I think the 12K quote looks more “right” in the sense that it includes loss of rent coverage, it also feels very high. This is very far from my experience with homeowners insurance (in California no less) and I have no sense for what’s normal here. Hoping for a little friendly advice on this topic!

[John Mocker]

Robert, You should be looking for a Homeowners policy is you are occupying one of the units. Not all carriers will write 4 family owner occupied properties but there are enough that you should shop around. Coverage should be Building (Special Form & Replacement Cost), Contents (Named Perils or speclal form with Replacement Cost), Other Structures (Special form with Replacement cost), Loss or Use/Loss of Rents. The limit for the Building should be the cost to rebuild from the foundation up. The limits for Contents, Other Structures, and Loss of use/rents are normally give a percent of the Building limit. For example most homeowners policies will give 50% of the building limit for the Contents limit. Start with the above info and request quotes from Multiple Independent Agents. See what you are getting back for limits and pricing.