Insurance for older apartment buildings

[John Chapman]

I'm having trouble getting insurance for a 31 unit apartment building I have an offer on.  It was built in 1971 and has only had minimal updates since then.   The only quote I have so far is about 10% of rents-- $20,000.  The roofs are in OK shape as are the electrical panels, but getting insurance on older apartment buildings is a nightmare.  Does anyone know of an insurer that I should investigate?  

I have a another question.   I have a number of 1-4 family properties a number of which are paid off.  Does anyone have any experience with self-insuring?  Is there a level at which it makes sense to do so?  Is there a rule of thumb on reserves that should be kept if one was self-insuring?

[Jason Bott]

@Ron Fiscus & @John Chapman I have several clients who self insure on the property, but keep a General Liability policy in place.

Last one I structured had 60 singles, average values around $45k. 

Rough #'s work out like this;  paying $600 per year per building for full coverage, annual total of $36,000.  We wrote a $1M general liability policy for $6,000. 

Saved $30k per year, or can lose a house to fire every 18 months and be breaking even.

Obviously there are other costs involved with cleaning up a property that need to be considered. But if you want to take on more risk to save more $, then this is an option.