Should You Require Your Tenants To Have Renters Insurance? The Answer Is Yes!

Top Landlord Rules That You Don’t Want To Break

It’s 2019 and most landlords still are not requiring their tenants to have renters insurance. Sadly, a tenant without renters insurance is going to be left with nothing should a fire or flood strike and destroy the items in their rental property.

Besides protecting the renter, renters insurance also protects the landlords best interests should someone be injured during an accident at the rental property.

How Does Renters Insurance Work?

Renters insurance is also important because it will follow your tenant wherever they go, especially if they are on vacation, if their personal items are stolen from the back of their rental vehicle.

Besides protecting your tenant from financial loss due to natural disasters like fires, floods or other acts of God, renters insurance will also protect the tenant if someone who is visiting then at your Central Valley rental property is injured.

Instead of having to pay the medical bills or full legal costs, your tenant can rely on their renter’s insurance policy to cover their costs so they don’t sustain serious financial damages or losses.

Renters Insurance Cost

Another benefit of requiring renters insurance at your Central Valley rental property is that renters insurance is not as important as expensive as other forms of insurance.

A typical renter’s insurance policy costs no more than $30 per month and it protects all of your tenant’s items inside the rental property although you are still legally required to ensure the structure of your rental property.

You Still Need Homeowners Insurance

Sadly in 2019 most property owners who own Central Valley rental property think that they no longer have to carry homeowners insurance once their rental property is rented out but the truth is that homeowners insurance is still a requirement and the owner must have a Rental Ryder added to their policy.

Help After Natural Disasters

In the untimely event that your Central Valley rental property is a victim of a natural disaster like a fire or flood, your tenant’s renter’s insurance policy will also provide them with the money that they need for their living expenses including hotel stays and food costs that they have to pay as a result of the natural disaster.

Renters Insurance General Requirements

Many large and medium-sized rental properties include a requirement in their lease that tenants hold renters’ insurance. If the tenant damages the premises, the landlord and other tenants can recover against the perpetrator’s insurance. Renters’ insurance also informs the tenant that the landlord is not responsible for their belongings and that the tenant has coverage for them. But it is important to know what type of damage your insurance covers. Basically, there are three types of coverage available: loss of use, personal property, and personal liability.

Multiple companies track renters’ insurance in apartment complexes by requiring the tenant to purchase insurance and maintaining a database of expiration dates, cancellations, and similar information for the property owner/manager to use to ensure coverage for all units. Among the companies that track renters insurance, there is some variation in methods. Some companies such as e-Renter Plan primarily track their own policies. Other companies, like Effective Coverage, track both their own policies and any compliant third-party policy that a tenant chooses. By using additional interest tracking, management companies and property owners gain a more complete picture of the insurance profile of their properties. A limited number of communities require that tenants list them on the policy as additional insured. This actually makes it more difficult for a property owner or manager to recover from a tenant’s liability policy because the additional insured is a party to the policy rather than a third party, which would be eligible for coverage.

Contact RPM Central Valley

To learn more about renters insurance or for a property management quote for your Central Valley Rental Property, contact RPM Central Valley today by calling us at (209) 572-2222 or connect with us online.