BiggerPockets

I went with the realtor to view the two houses I posted about in another thread.

Both houses have a half finished garage conversion which should probably be converted back to a garage, also one of the houses has a medium case of mold. Otherwise these are nice houses in a well kept neighborhood.

The realtor mentioned maybe not telling the insurance company too much about these problems, because they may never come out to check the house in the first place. However, since the house will have to be vacant for at least a month while these repairs are done, I''m concerned that there could be fire or something, and my insurance company could deny me, especially if they found out serious work was being done they didn''t know about.

Anyway, my idea was to insure through TAPCO while the repairs are done (similar to Foremost, but Foremost won''t insure in Florida). TAPCO will cost about 2.5 times more than normal insurance, but I'll just factor that into my offers.Then I'll go back to a regular insurance company once the tenant is in.

I guess what I'm asking is has anyone ever lost a deal because the insurance company wouldn''t insure? I'm trying to figure all this out before I go to my insurance co. and tell them all this.

Thanks.

What JScott said but be careful with a landlord policy. Depending on your state and your carrier the vacancy provision Jason mentioned can drop off certain coverages after only 30 days of vacancy. It really depends on the individual carrier and what your state department of insurance dictates.

Builders risk policies usually take care of that vacancy. There's something else a builders risk does that generally no other policy covers - it generally covers you from faulty/improper construction. So if your contractor ends up being an idiot and putting the wrong kind of roofing material down (I've seen it many times) a builder's risk will generally take care of you. Read it though and know for sure.

I also have some further things I really need to tell you in private message. All I will say publicly is that if you are not an expert in things like mold or chinese toxic drywall, you don't aid yourself by contacting your insurer. If they investigate, it is a "claim" and you start ownership of this property with already one claim on your record. They won't just "check it out" for you without reporting it as a claim. Legally they can't. Plus by virtue of contacting them they are obligated to fully investigate the claim and sent notations of any mold to a company like Choice Point (owned now by Lexis Nexis - the legal database firm) who maintains database records of every claim reported to them on every property throughout the US for every insurance carrier (competitors in the insurance industry all share claims data) who uses their system to determine if they want to insure a property or not.

Thanks for the responses. Tim I accepted your colleague request.