Is there a "go to" insurance company?

[Adam Craig]

Just wondering if there is an insurance company that is known for the best rates on home owners insurance. I was getting real good rates from Nationwide but after my 6th property they had to outsource the policy so it was quite a bit more.

I am assuming its based on demographics and other factors. Before I call for a bunch of quote I wanted to check with BP members.

[Mike H.]

I've never heard about getting one policy that would cover multiple houses like that. I didn't even know that existed.

I use NREIG. They're basically a real estate broker that specializes in investor property insurance for SFHs. Some of the key benefits as to why I love them:
1) They don't have any property limits.
2) They have insurance that covers homes that are going through rehab (i.e. vacant) that some hard money lenders absolutely require but not all insurance companies offer.
3) They let you pay by the month instead of annually so you're not fronting, on average, an entire 6 mos of payments.
4) Lastly, that they let you do replacement cost coverage at less than what it costs to build the house.   This helps you significantly reduce your payments.

So if your house is worth 150k but you only owe 90k, you really only need 105k or so to cover yourself. Basically, thats enough to pay off the loan and clean up the lot in case of a complete loss.  So you get coverage for 105k and only pay your rate based on that instead of 150k. Thats a roughly 30% savings alone.  But if you have a 40k loss due to something happening in a portion of the house, they'll cover it completely under the replacement cost policy.

Now the downside to that is that if your house is totaled, you aren't getting the full value to rebuild it so you would be losing your equity there.

For me, I'd rather save the 30% on my insurance (30% on 30 houses is a lot) than to use insurance as a form of a lottery ticket. The odds are I probably will never have a complete loss. But if I do, it won't cost me any money. I'll end up with a lot paid for free clear and thats it.  I'll take that as the downside.