Hi All,

I am in the process of purchasing a rental property (3 unit) in Gardner, MA. I called my insurance company, USAA, and they quoted me at 4,300/annually; that is with a 10% discount. Does anyone have any recommendations for other companies to call. The current owner reports he is paying 2,300/annually, so getting a quote 2,000 higher seems odd to me. Thank you in advance!

 Ask them what is driving the cost so high.  Some of it is about the coverage current owner may not have same coverage.  Some of it may be about age/construction.  

Best to call an independent agent rather then a company I don't know a good agent in MA maybe someone else will chime in.  

Yes, sounds to high. May have to do with distance from fire department....I pay $2,300 for my 3-family in Northampton. Here's the the agent I use (in Holyoke), I've always found him helpful:  Michael Regan Clayton Insurance in Holyoke. I seem to be prevented from posting contact details here but you can find him I'm sure...

Call Prime Insurance in North Andover if you haven't already. Joe Ventimiglia is my contact there,978 685-9999.  

They do the insurance for all of our multi-families in Fitchburg in Leominster and we have been very happy with their rates. $4300 sounds insanely high to me, to put it in perspective we pay less than that for a 5 unit in with commercial footprint in a floodzone... Definitely shop around. 

@Thomas J. Budka

Another vote for Prime Insurance here. My wife and I also hold homeowners and landlord policies with Travelers with very good rates. Good luck!

-Todd

@Thomas J. Budka

Paul Berrios with William Raveis Insurance. Every time I get quote from him, he seems to be the lowest.

I’ll pm you the contact info.

I don’t know if I have to disclose, but will anyways. We are under the same umbrella of companies. I work for the real estate business, William Raveis Real Estate , and he works on the insurance arm, William Raveis Insurance.

Feel free to drop my name if you want.

Good luck! Like everyone else has said, that seems way too high of a quote.

I would ask which provider the previous owner is going with and asking for a transfer policy. Those are most economical. 

@Lien Vuong is right, this can be another great approach as the current provider has already underwritten the property and is incentives to keep the business.

@Danielle McKahn thank you Danielle.

@Jonathan Bombaci thanks Jon. I put a call into him today.

@Todd Wheatley thanks Todd.

@Jon McCarron thanks Jon. I will reach out to them.

@Lien Vuong thanks Lien. Definitely an idea I will explore.

@Thomas J. Budka

In the past, I found USAA has a very high initial estimate on the replacement cost. I would evaluate what they estimated first. The other thing that seems off is that you’re only getting a 10% discount. The discounts are usually very significant if you have a few policies with USAA. Are your auto and other policies all spread around with different companies?

@Thomas J. Budka We have several rentals in Boston/central Mass and we use Ed Timmerman at John T Burns in Newton. They write for Vermont mutual which is one of the premier insurance companies in the Northeast for landlords. 

@Mason Hickman no. They are all with USAA.

@Justin Rank awesome. I’ll add him to the list.

@Thomas J. Budka , believe it or not, but we've had the best luck with AAA (yes, that Tripple A). They were the most economical for us every time we priced them out, believe it or not. I called 16 different companies, AAA won every year. I basically only shop around every three years now.