All Forum Posts by: Jason Bott

@NA NA I may be mistaken, but I do not believe there is a government agency that tracks this.  I know it is not required of insurance companies to report this info.

Nice!  Glad it worked out.

Let us know if the claim closes out to your satisfaction.

@Ade Adesuyi 

I forgot to add that if you can get the name of the insurance agent, and present the claim to them, they have a legal obligation to file the claim.  The owner of the property and the insurance agent do not have the right to decide which claims are presented to the insurance carrier and which are not.

@Billy Bob 

I represent Foremost and can tell you that they will insure a vacant building, but not a home that needs a lot of work. Missing shingles and other deferred building maintenance will be issues for them.  I also represent NREI and am pretty sure they will be more flexible and be a good fit for you. 

If NREI can't do it, then do it the old school way.  You can purchase a Builders risk policy and pair it with a General Liability policy.  You will probably be in the $2k-$3k range this way.

@Ade Adesuyi 

IF the other house was insured, and can find who the insurance company is, you would have the damaged covered under the General Liability portion of the policy.  You can file direct to the insurance carrier if their property caused damage to your property.  You would have very little out of pocket as long as you and the insurance carrier can come to an agreement on the value of the loss.

Insurance info may be private but if you present a claim to the rightful insurance carrier, they need to respond to the claim.  You do not need to go through the owners to do this. 

Get assertive and get in contact with those owners.  If they can just get you the name of the insurance carrier, that is all you need.  Let me know if you need any other help on it.  good luck.

@Yoann Mamy Randriamihaja 

If you have the proper insurance in place it will be a nonissue.  Your state of orientation of the llc does not change the way your insurance policy reacts to a claim. 

The state and city where the claim happened are the laws that will apply. 

The level of protection is really whatever will help you sleep at night.  I was just with one of my clients this afternoon who has only a $1mil umbrella and he has 100's of locations in pretty rough parts of town.  I also have clients with less than 10 and have $2mil-$3mil umbrella.

@David Roberts 

I have to agree with @Arlan Potter 

I only see the legal structure you are describing with my larger commercial clients who have annual sales in the $25MM range.  When I see multiple llc's with my landlords it usually has to do with keeping equity partnerships separate from one another, not liability.  With the $ you would be paying your CPA to manage the books on these multiple llc's , you might as well just buy a $10MM Umbrella and never have to worry about getting touched by a suit.

@Chris K. 

The best way to verify any insurance coverage is to request proof of coverage directly from the contractors insurance agent.  They will have the most up to date info and will be able to tell you if a policy has been canceled for nonpayment. 

I am only one agent and I have had 2 past clients doctor the dates on policies that were with me but canceled for nonpay.  The last one was just 3 weeks ago with a Landscaper trying to rent a piece of equipment with a policy that had canceled in 2010!  Luckily the lady working at the equipment company thought the insurance document looked odd and called my office to verify the coverage.  SO I figure this guy has been giving these forged docs for 4 years to all sorts of residents who thought there was coverage.

1 step better is to set up a contractors agreement listing out the insurance requirements and tell the contractor to send it to his agent and the agent will know what to do.  My main assistant gets 5-6 of these requests from my clients every day.

@Blake Woodham 

always helps to look around.  Can you share the company?  In case I have a client who has a diving board I would like to point them in the right direction.

@Clint Richmond 

Knob and tube is getting hammered in the insurance world.  This alone could be the reason for the insurance increase. 

To find out what losses the property may have had ask the seller to have his insurance agent send you "5 year Loss Runs".  This is the official document from the insurance company detailing the losses and total amounts paid out.  The report is nice to have.  Let's say there is a tenant that has filed 2 slip and fall claims and is still on the rent roll.  You would be able to strategize how to handle that situation versus blinding walking into rising insurance costs.