There’s a certain level of risk inherent in renting your property out to an unknown person. If a tenant has taken up residence in your home, there’s no real way of telling what the future holds. Most tenants are perfectly reliable and will treat your home like it’s their own. Unfortunately, there are a few who will damage your property, steal your belongings, or leave with unpaid rent and bills. This type of situation is exactly what landlord insurance was designed for. It’s meant to help protect your investment against the risks of renting your home out to tenants.
In addition to landlord insurance, another way to protect your home is to work with a real estate agent or property manager. They can monitor your property and communicate with tenants should rent payments be late.
Most landlords will choose to purchase home and contents insurance. Home or property insurance is meant to cover any damage that occurs to the actual building. This could include natural disasters such as earthquake, flooding, or fire, as well as damage caused accidentally by the tenants. While home insurance covers the building itself, contents insurance protects your belongings. This could include furnishings, carpets, and curtains. Contents insurance protects interior furnishings from theft or damage. Although this type of insurance is a good idea because it helps replace damaged or stolen items, it doesn’t take care of you during the process of repair or replacement.
During this process, you may not be able to rent out your home, which prevents you from receiving the usual income from your investment. Home and contents insurance also doesn’t cover the loss if a tenant skips town without paying rent. You don’t want to be left in the lurch without your usual income, particularly if you need it to assist you with paying off a mortgage. This is where landlord insurance comes into play.
There are several areas that landlord insurance helps cover:
Loss of Rental Income
Landlord insurance can help pay for the loss of income in situations such as those mentioned above; like if a property is rendered unliveable due to property damage. Other situations could include the death of a tenant, if a tenant defaults on rent, or if a court frees your tenant from their lease obligations due to financial hardship.
Malicious Damage
Although most tenants are perfectly lovely and will respect your property, there are a few bad seeds who will deliberately damage property. This may include your tenants or their guests. In some cases, this will be covered by home and contents insurance, but you can get extra coverage from landlord insurance.
Liability
There are certain responsibilities and rights that you have as a landlord, which are important to learn about. If you fail to uphold your end of the bargain, the tenant may find grounds to sue you. This could be the case if they get injured due to negligence in the management of the property, for example. In this case, the landlord insurance would help cover the cost of settlement along with all legal and court fees.
Emergency Care
If there is a household emergency, you will be responsible for fixing the problem as the landlord. One way to cope with emergencies is to hire a property manager. You can find a qualified real estate agent to deal with the daily management of your property by using the comparison tool at LocalAgentFinder. However, if you and your property agent are not available, emergency assistance can be useful. This gives the tenant a 24-hour contact to help with emergency maintenance issues such as power failure or urgent plumbing disasters. The cost of this repair will be assumed by the insurance company.
Legal Expenses
Your tenant may take you to court in matters of liability, but you may also be in need of legal assistance if there is any other type of dispute.
There are many different areas where landlord insurance provides valuable protection. This type of insurance is designed to be quite comprehensive and cover a broad range of issues that can befall a landlord. You can also protect yourself by conducting thorough screenings of all tenant applications, and ensuring that you have a legally sound lease agreement signed by both parties. It’s also a good idea to perform regular inspections on the property throughout this lease agreement, with the assistance of your property agent. Should you own a strata title property, be sure to find out what’s covered by the owners’ corporation before you take out landlord insurance.
Although purchasing this additional coverage can require an added investment, it’s worth the peace of mind that you gain from knowing that your property is financially secure. This will save you the time, money, and trouble in the long run should there be any damage or disputes.