Wasn't sure what forum to post this in:

Looking to rent a house for New Years Eve, and the owner of the house I found and am interested in sent me a copy of the least to look over...it is for a four night stay. The last item on the lease reads as follows:

"Tenant agrees to purchase renters insurance that covers liability of 300,000 for each individual staying at the property. Tenant understands that landlords insurance does not cover tenants liability or tenants guest liability while staying at the property. Tenant must make any claims to his own personal renter insurance policy. Landlord will not be held responsible for any lost or stolen items or any personal injury to tenant or guest of tenants during this lease term."

I did not even know you could purchase renter's insurance for that short of a stay, and have rented at least six houses in the past and there was never a mention of this.

Anyone have any experience in this?

Thanks

There are insurance agencies that specialize in odd ball stuff but I don't think you even need to go that route. I needed insurance for a one day event and I just called my normal insurance agent and they took care of it. ~$30 for $1M in liability. If you call an insurance agent if they can't help you they will tell you who can.

There is also a chance that this is just a waiver on the landlord's part and that he will not actually confirm that you have insurance. You would then be gambling that nothing happens for those four days.

I've never seen a lease that "required" renter's insurance before...interesting.

All my leases just "highly recommend" it.

My lease requires renters insurance. They required it before they hand over the keys. After that they don't keep track but they out of the blue just recently did a building-wide surprise check where he had to send in our policies.

Are you in Canada Henry?

I've never heard of requiring it in Idaho or WA state. Interesting.

Why does the landlord care?

At my school, a frat used to use a guy's backyard for a giant 20+ keg party once a year, and his only stipulation (other than charging a fee) was that they had 1 day insurance on everyone in attendance. Was not that expensive iirc ~500 for 100ish people.

Yes Canada. In school I rented from an individual and it was not required but as soon as i rented from a large property management company it has always been required.

I don't know the reason but I can think of a couple of possible reasons. One would be say I overflow the tub and the water goes into the unit below mine and causes water damage. I'd be responsible and what if I can't pay? That is really the only way I can think of where my actions would damage stuff in a different unit but there might be other scenarios. The second reason is that the first rule of tort law is name as many people as possible when suing someone so even though the landlord is almost never going to be liable just having to deal with getting named is a pain in the ass and costly. I really don't know if these are the reasons but I can't think of any other reason the landlord would care.

Yup, I'm in California, and it's required at my apartment. They require a statement from your agent. That's the example they give - pipe breaks, apartments below are flooded, apartment owners are not liable for anything other than repairing the pipe.

In the bathtub scenario, as the landlord, my insurance would pay. Weather it was an accident or purposeful or because something broke. (as long as it was more then the deductible)

I still can't think of a reason why it should matter for the landlord. If landlords require it there's a reason why obviously, I just can't think of it. (and as a landlord, I'm curious why)

I'm not sure if your insurance would cover it. If the pipe broke in the wall your insurance would cover it but if I just go turn on the water and let it go until it overflows or if the pipe breaks in the actual unit after it emerges from the wall I don't believe it would.

The only time I have run into this as a requirement is when the entire building is owned by the same person. My understanding is that the landlord's insurance covers anything that happens to the exterior of the building, common areas, and in the walls. Anything that happens that has an origin in the units is not covered.

My mom is an insurance agent and her company would cover it (called her tonight). Also, my insurance company (state farm) said they would too. And I have a friend that sells insurance, asked him, and his company would cover it too.

It's possible it's different in Canada, or it's company specific and I just ran into variance with 3 of 3 covering it.

I'm still curious why the landlord cares. And I own whole buildings (100% of what I own is the whole thing) so still pretty interested in why landlords would require it.

My next landlord meeting isn't till jan....but I'll ask at the next dinner as there will be 20-50 other landlords depending on the weather, and I'll ask if any of them require it + why.

What does "cover it" mean? If a pipe breaks and a flood destroys a tenant's $10 million Rembrandt, does your insurance cover it?

Rika:

I live in a townhome in Seattle, and I am required to keep $300k in renter's insurance.

Just rented a house in the north GA mountains for New Years. They charged me a mandatory $45 fee for insurance for 3 nights. This is the first time I've been charged a fee like this over about 10 previous rentals.

On another note, they tacked 4 separate fees onto our final bill, which raised it 52% over the nightly rate (extra person fee, insurance, cleaning fee, tax). Ridiculous.

This extra fee BS seems to be fairly rampant in a lot of industries. I think it is a horrible way to do business. I don't mind paying $X if that is what a business wants but if you trick me into choosing you over a competitor by offering a lower prince and then feeing me to death on things I would assume were included then I'm done with your business -- I'll never come back.

If it's above the maximum coverage, no. If it's below the max coverage, yes. Also, most of my tenants are on food stamps....so yeah...don't have to worry about stuff like that.

Sorry, I should of clarified.

Eastern Washington state (think Spokane) is where I own. Eastern and Western WA (spokane vs. seattle) are like 2 different states. In seattle (king county) there's a WHOLE different set of city ordiances/rules to follow. And it's super liberal compared to Spokane. (aka spokane is much more landlord friendly compared to seattle)

For the record, I still can't think of a reason why a landlord would care if a tenants personal property is covered or not. As long as I'm covered, that's all that matters.

I know there's landlords that do require it, and I'm sure they have a "reasonable" reason/s. I just can't figure it out (other then some liberal law requires it or something).

Quick google search led me to

How does renters insurance protect my landlord?

In order to understand why a landlord wants you to have this coverage you need to know what renters insurance covers. The main reason a landlord will require renters insurance is to provide themselves with legal protection. This safeguards the landlord from lawsuits to recover damages, loss, or injuries that are incurred by you, other tenants, or guests. Requiring tenants to hold renters insurance policies prevents landlords from having to pay out of pocket should something happen to you or your personal property if you are not covered.

Another reason a landlord will require renters insurance is to reduce the costs of their own liability coverage and insurance premiums. This is a way for landlords to avoid having to file a claim on your behalf on their own insurance policy. Every claim a landlord files may cause their insurance premiums to go up. If too many claims are made, over time an insurance carrier may refuse to provide insurance coverage to the landlord. If you have your own property insured, that is one less claim that the landlord will have to submit in the event of a loss.

http://www.insuranceproviders.com/wh...ers-insurance/

We already explained it. Pipe breaks on the 4th floor. 3rd floor apartment gets flooded and lots of personal property damaged. 3rd floor tenant has no renters insurance, so he sues landlord.

I already explained that my insurance covers it.

I guess landlords are just scared of "amount of claims"...because other then that it's not a big deal.

Why wouldn't the landlord's insurance pay if you have renter's insurance? Or the insurance companies would work it out themselves easier?

If you already have renter's insurance, it might cover you when staying somewhere else as well (mine does). Check with your insurance agent to make sure.

There are a lot of reasons Landlord's require renter's liability insurance. Same reasons the state requires driver's to own auto insurance.

Another reason it is getting popular for landlord associations and property management companies is it give them a discount on THEIR insurance if they require tenant's to have renter's insurance.

Renter's liability insurance is usually pretty cheap, say $120 a year for 300k liability only. The reason it is so expensive to get it for 3 days is it isn't worth an agent's paperwork to do a 3 day policy for $2 so they tack on fee's and such. Kind of like the ripoff of cell phone insurance

This is exactly why some owners I know require renter's insurance. Someone breaks in and steals the big flat screen and tenants are faced with that age-old dilemma: Pay rent or buy a new tv?