All Forum Posts by: Donald Stevens

The reason I am guessing for the mutliple umbrella's is because those three items you mentioned are owned differently. In other words, you personally have an umbrella for those things in your name, the llc for the apartment, and another for the entity holding the IRA that owns the other property. Liability follows the named insured, so I think your agent is doing it right. The only way to reduce your policies is to combine ownership, but that opens other issues, like taxes and liability exposures.

Not sure about your state but isnt the lease tied to the owner and not the building? Maybe Im crazy but I think it is going to be hard to enforce a contract where one of the current parties is not party to the executed contract. You were not able to negotiate or agree to the terms. Was the lease included in the sale of the property and listed with the title company? Could be wrong, Im not an attorney.

Our agency writes rentals and vacants in Texas without the primary home.

An umbrella can be for personal or business policies. You may need both depending on your risk assessment. That being said, you personally would need an umbrella when you have an LLC. The first L stands for limited which means you have some liability.

Most policies have a duty to report clause. It requires the insured to report a potential claim as soon as you become aware. It may end up being nothing but you then have liability and litigation protection (assuming your policy has that, not an automatic with landlord insurance). Downside is you will have a bodily injury claim which can make your rates higher. BI claims are some of the most severe claims you can have from a company perspective. Mysterious disappearance being another. Either way, use your attorney, thats what he's there for.

Eric and Chris have excellent answers. BP is a great resource for helping others navigate the pitfalls of the REO world. Good job.

This is a good example of why a you want your property manager to carry a bond for rents collected on your behalf. You should always ask your property manager to provide proof of insurance for liability, workers compensation, bond, and E&O. Those four in my opinion are mandatory because if the PM doesn't have those coverages you will be providing it out of pocket.

Your options are going to be limited. Many companies either will not write or they exclude the liability from a landlord policy if there is a pool. Check your home and auto insurance agent first then check with a good sized independant agent that writes more than just auto insurance. Our agents write those all the time as a stand alone policy or as a package with home, auto, and umbrella to maximize discounts. My advice, get a quote on insurance before you make an offer. That way you go in educated.

Those questions are specific to the contract you have with the insurance company.

1.) ACV is not related to market value (purchase price). There are companies that will not let you purchase more insurance value than purchase price but still use the ACV rules which could give you penalties on a claim payout for being underinsured. Crazy but true.

2.)ACV values are deteremined by a claims adjuster. If it was me I would keep records of all repairs and upgrades so you can value those at the time of a claim. Also check with the company if you need to increase insurance values when you update the building. Some have a minimum amount you have to be insured (called a coninsurance clause) and your upgrades could push up your value and possibly create penalties.

3.)Companies like Foremost have a what if claims scenario line you can call and they will tell you if the claim would be paid and how much. Hopefully your insurance agent knows ACV and can give you some good guidance on that. Just be aware you do not get more insurance than you paid for and if you dont pay for enough there will be a penalty assessed to the claim payout. If you pay for too much, while there are no penalties, you just paid for more coverage than your are going to get.

i just reliazed there is an important fact I overlooked here. Most renters insurance policies only offer the landlord a fire legal liability limit protection. Sometimes its an even 100k and sometimes it is equal to their amount of liability selected. I've seen renters insurance policies with as low as 25k liability. The problem is that it only pays out in the event of a fire claim and not EVERY renters insurance policy offers that coverage. Havent seen or heard of a renters policy that would pay for the tenant vandalizing the place but if you have the proof of insurance you can have your attorney determine coverage and your next step. Good luck.