All Forum Posts by: Jason Bott

@Verna Littleton @Wendy Thurst we rep for NREIG and can share that they will not be able to insure the building if it is owner occupied.

If you are living in the property as your primary home, you would get a standard Homeowners policy.  Give the construction details to your agent and they can advise if the amount of work falls under the standard policy or if they will need to endorse additional coverage onto it.

@Laura Williams there are different underwriting guidelines for apartments versus a HOA, but both spaces have very few option for buildings built prior to 1980. If it is prior to 1960, you are most likely stuck with the nonstandard companies.

Connect with @John Mocker  He is in your area and can help.

 Dave, the basis of the insurance premium formula is sq/ft.  Given units could be 500-2,000 sq/ft, there is no good way to estimate the cost per unit.  Any formula you find will give you bad #'s.

Rajib, I understand you incurred financial losses here, but these items are typically considered "Wear and Tear".  There are always exceptions, but I would say you would be lucky if any of these items would be covered under Vandalism and not Wear and Tear.  

In regards to your last post, can you get a police report showing the activity?  Then you could make the case that there were non-renters damaging the building and it could qualify as Vandalism.

With commercial insurance, there are many ways to value a building, structure coverage and set deductibles.  There could be 25 different coverage items causing this change in pricing.

I have several questions that would need to be answered before I could suggest going through your PM instead of the new agent.

1) How did the PM submit signed authorization from you to Hartford take over the Hartford quote without your knowledge?

2)  Does the PM have a licensed agent on staff to act as the liaison for the insurance placement?  Most do not.  Typically the commercial agent managing the PM's insurance program will do the presentation of the quotes.  That is how we handle it.

3)  If a fee is being charged, most stated require the agent to have you sign off on agreeing the the fee above and beyond the typically commission that is built into the commercial policy.

Personally, I would suggest going with the independent agent.  

Best of luck with it.

 Tony, in this market, the lowest per sq/ft cost an underwriter would allow is probably around $70-$80, that would bring the minimum insured value around $300,000.  Good news is office buildings are very inexpensive to insure.

@Kunal Lakhwani I agree with everything @Owen Rosen is stating and would add most policies will have a clause stating if it has been vacant for more than 60 days, then Theft can be excluded.

At the end of the day, only an agent who can review your current policy can advise on how your policy will respond.

@Cameron Martin WC rates for GC & roofing are typically 20-35% of the total payroll.  So, $100k of payroll would generate $20k-$35k in WC premiums.  Without knowing the situation I believe she is just unaware of the true cost of the WC.