Rental Insurance clause

[Danielle Scott]

I'm a landlord newbie and am going to encourage my tenants to get rental insurance. Does anybody have any doc or part of their lease they wouldn't mind sharing that covers this? I don't particularly want to pay a lawyer to draft a few paragraphs when I already have the rest of the lease set to go. Something that says rental insurance for your personal belongings is highly encouraged but if you chose to forgo it all damages to the tenant's personal property will be at the tenants expense. Thanks!

[Frank Chin]

I include the requirement in my lease and now includes me as an additional insured so I'll be notified if the tenant buys the insurance, shows me the certificate of insurance, then cancels it. This has happened to me once, and then the tenant had a flood, then came after me.

I had my leases prepared by ezLandlordforms.com, which includes legal advice on different clauses in the lease contract. They advised that in NYC, I cannot legally require this. So what they have is a form where if the tenant declines to buy coverage, they agree to hold me harmless from damages, theft etc. Most tenants, when they see this, then goes to get insured. It's relatively cheap.