RENTER

If you rent an apartment or a house, your belongings or your legal liability are not covered by your landlord’s insurance policy. If your possessions are stolen during a break-in or damaged by a fire or severe windstorm, a renters insurance policy can allow you to recover their value. If someone is injured during an accident in your home and you are alleged to be legally responsible, renters insurance may help protect you in the case a liability lawsuit.

Renters Insurance Covers:

LANDLORD’S POLICY

If you are planning to lease your home for a longer period of time, you will likely need a landlord or rental dwelling policy. Landlord policies generally cost about 25 percent more than a standard homeowners policy to pay for increased protections. If you are regularly renting out a vacation home or investment property, this would also require a landlord or rental dwelling policy.

Landlord policies provide property insurance coverage for physical damage to the structure of the home caused by fire, lightning, wind, hail, ice, snow or other covered perils. It also offers coverage for any personal property you may leave on-site for maintenance or tenant use, like appliances, lawnmowers, and snow blowers.

The policy also includes liability coverage, if a tenant or one of their guests gets hurt on the property, it would cover legal fees and medical expenses.

Most landlord policies provide coverage for loss of rental income in the event you are not able to rent out the property while it is being repaired or rebuilt due to damage from a covered loss. This coverage is generally provided for a specific period of time.

FLOOD

Many homeowners are unaware that their home insurance doesn’t cover flood damage. Flood insurance is one of the best ways you can protect yourself from flood losses. Contents coverage can include possessions such as furniture, clothing and other valuables, subject to policy limits and exclusions.

It doesn’t take a major body of water or a significant storm to cause flooding. A flood can happen because of things like a slow-moving rainstorm, snow melt and land development runoff. Flood insurance covers certain cleanup expenses. It also covers damages to your heating and cooling system and repair or replacement of flooring, according to the policy.

Flood insurance is backed by the government. Most flood insurance is administered by the National Flood Insurance Program.

UMBRELLA

If you have increased the liability limits of your home, auto or other insurance policy to as high as your company will offer and still are not comfortable, you have two options. The first is typically called an excess liability policy. This policy does nothing to the terms of your other insurance policies – it simply raises the limit of liability you have available for a claim. 

A second option is a personal umbrella policy. Most umbrella policies function as an excess liability policy. However, in addition to acting as a reserve, the umbrella provides additional coverage for types of losses that otherwise would not be paid. Examples of additional coverage may include:

The intent of an umbrella policy is to extend limits and coverage on some or all of the insurance policies you currently have. Such policies typically include your homeowners and auto insurance policies and may also include others such as a condo, watercraft or ATV. The policies covered by the umbrella are called “underlying” policies.

To obtain an umbrella policy, you likely will have to prove that the limits of the underlying policies that it covers (such as your homeowners and auto insurance) are not less than a specified dollar amount.