All Forum Posts by: Jason Bott

Kyle, "Student Rentals" can be considered high risk to most insurance companies.  Just make sure the #'s you are quoting on the insurance are for a student rental and not a home owners policy.

Good luck!

Leo, you should do great with your back ground. Are you looking for more copywriting work? If so, please connect with me as I have been looking for a copywriter with knowledge of the REI world.

A work comp policy (each state is different) employees, independent contractors AND volunteers have work comp rights.  Basically, anyone who is bettering you financially can make a case that it is your responsibility to take care of their injuries, directly out of your pocket or through a work comp policy.

A common misconception is that tax law and work comp law are interrelated, but they are independent of each other.  Just because you claim everyone as an independent contractor with your accountant, does not mean the State will automatically classify them as independent contractors.

2 Quick tips

- If they can make a profit or loss on a project and control their own schedule, it hard to argue they are an employee.

- Always get the certificate of insurance from the contractors insurance agent, not the contractor.  I have had 2 cases this year where ther certificate of insurance has be doctored.

Scott,

You can combine your General Liability & Property, while the Builders risk & Flood are both stand alone policies. 

A higher ded will definitely lower you cost for each policy, but the % savings is not the same from policy to policy.  Example, going from $500 to $1000 may save you $5 on 1 policy but $30 on another.

Regarding $ back, the Builders Risk will most likely be the one policy that is a "Fully Earned Premium".  So if you finish the flip in 4 months, but have purchased a 6 mo Builders Risk, you will forfeit the 2 months of premium.  You will get $ back for the other policies.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Good Luck!

Scott,

If you can tell me what your looking for; ease of billing, best premiums, broadest coverage, response time, claim payout satisfaction.  Will you be flipping or buy and hold?   I represent 50+ companies and no 1 company handles all well.  If you can give me your #1,#2, #3 most important, I can tell you which to avoid.

I know that 1 particular company will be the most competitive in your area, but they are getting sued because of they will stall on claim payouts.  If you want the name to that company, send me a private message.

If the biz has clientele coming to the property, you will want them to add you as an "Additional Insured" on to their business policy.   If there is a slip and fall claim made by a biz customer, the tenant biz policy will defend you, greatly reducing the likelihood that your policy would pay any part of the liability claim.   

Depending on the type of insurance policy you have, it may have an exclusion for business operations.  In this case, you would be holding the bag on the entire claim.

Calvin, as a commercial insurance broker I can tell you that you will create more issues "blending" your Irrigation Consultation biz with the rentals.  It would be close to impossible to find 1 insurance carrier willing to competitively price a combined program. 

That being said, with 2 rental properties (insurance carrier will base their decision on # of rental units, not locations) you want to first find out if your current insurance carrier will offer a General Liability limit of $2million before adding an umbrella policy.  This can be done for $25-$50 a year.  If they can't do that, they will be able to give you a price for each million in coverage.  The higher the limit, the less it costs for each million.

Replacement Cost, special form is the best.  It may not be available if your properties are too old for your insurance carrier.  If that is the case, try and find an insurance carrier who can offer it.  If by last resort, ACV (Actual Cash Value) is your only option, it is very important to insure to the proper value.  If you do not, you may not have enough money from the insurance carrier to get your property back to it's previous state.

Brian, if you decide to keep them in your personal name, you can get a Personal Liability policy fairly inexpensive, $150-$200 per year for the first $1mil, and $50 for each additional $mil.  Most insurance companies will all up to 2-4 rental units before you will be maxed out and be forced over to the commercial side.  Just make sure the personal umbrella does not exclude "business operations".