All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

Hi Alex, 

I work for Honeycomb, a dedicated insurance provider for rental properties that operate in CA. You can also look at this list of insurers from the DOI to explore other options: https://interactive.web.insurance.ca.gov/apex_extprd/f?p=144...

Hi Gururaj, 

You will need landlord insurance and not homeowners insurance for the property as you do not live in the units. 

I advise you to search online or look for a broker to help you with quotes for the property.

Hi Wynn, 

Insurance rates aren't driven by the purchase price but mostly by the replacement cost of rebuilding the property alongside other factors (type of construction, property condition, etc) .

I recommend shopping around directly or through an independent agent and seeking more offers. 

Echoing @Rod Hanks, you do not need homeowners insurance (HO3) but a dwelling fire policy (DP) or a commercial package that is tailored for landlords.  With Homeowners insurance, a big chunk of your premium will be allocated to cover the personal belonging of your tenant.

My advice to you is to research landlord insurance or consult an insurance broker.   

Nicholas, 

I echo your sentiment about buying insurance to protect your properties from catastrophic events. That's exactly why you need to insure for the replacement cost of your property and not the market value or loan amount which can be very different. 

Shop around for other offers and adjust your deductibles to fit your upkeep strategy. 

 Hi Alisha, I"m afraid not.

Hi Tiffany, 

You don't need homeowner insurance, you need landlord insurance. Homeowner insurance will likely require you to cover personal property for 50% of your duplex replacement cost (the cost of rebuilding your duplex). That's just a waste of your premium dollars. 

I advise you to search online or ask a broker about the right coverage for your property. 

Super important and excellent comments. With the current market, we see huge number of quotes that are requesting replacement costs that are lower than what they should be. 

There's a big challenge explaining the above to investors, usually the ones that only started out and focus only on pricing. 

@Cameron Moore thank you for posting it. 

At Honeycomb, we've changed our quoting process to enable agents to change eff.date for a certain amount of time without this needs to go through underwriting.  This doesn't solve the COI yet it simplifies the process and saves some time.  As for obtaining the COI and changing the eff.date - with the exception of backdating we tend to do it very fast. 

Your options are basically

1) Find a broker that has access to many carriers and get you quotes

2) Get a quote from the big carriers that have captive agents that only work for them (Farmers for example)

3) Explore carriers that work direct-to-consumer

You can search on Google for "landlord insurance" or similar terms. Also I"m sure there are some agents within the BP community that can assist.