All Forum Posts by: Donald Stevens

Off the top of my head Foremost will insure properties over 60 years old. Updates are important. I believe American Modern is another that offers insurance on older homes. There are also a bunch of specialty companies that offer dwelling coverage for "non-standard-" rental homes and those companies can be found by getting a quote from an independant agent rather than a captive like State Farm, AAA, or Nationwide. Not that there is anything wrong with those companies, they just dont have the flexibility to insure everything.

If you have a copy of the renters insurance you can call the company and make a claim. The insurance company will then contact the insured to determine fault. Happens a lot with at fault auto insurance where the not at fault person files a claim against the guilty party. Usually your insurance company does the background work for you (filing a claim with the other parties insurance) but its not mandatory.

If the carrier is unrepsonsive you can litigate which will force the tenant to get the insurance company involved.

Depending on the amount you can take the neighbor to small claims court. They will probably get the insurance company involved and hopefully pay for the damage.

The easier option is for your neighbor to file a claim on their insurance for you.

Neither option makes friends so good luck.

Thats almost exactly what I was going to say Eric. Your HOA has a master policy that states what it doesnt cover and that is what you need to buy for insurance. Could be for betterements and improvements, drywall in, or maybe you just need liability and contents. The master policy is where you start.

Also Eric you make a good point about renting it out. I dont think GEICO writes rental condos but I could be wrong. If he lives in it then the coverage needed is the only issue.

Thats a very good question without an easy answer. I can give you a generic one and hopefully that is helpful. Because every home has different features, building material quality, and age of materials, (maybe the kitchen was renovated 5 years ago) the value and depreciation can vary greatly.

The rule of thumb I've used for easy ACV calculation is if its a frame home depreciate by 1% per year and if its brick then its .5% per year, up to a max of 50% depreciation. When it comes to ACV its better to be a little over insured than underinsured because if your underinsured you may get penalties on top of depreciation when you dont carry a minimum amount of coverage to satisfy the contract with the insurance company (called coinsurance penalties).

Ok, here it goes. RC is replacement cost and ACV is actual cash value.

RC=190,000, Depreciation for frame=50% (54 years times 1% stop at max 50%), Depreciation for brick=27% (54yrs x .5%)

So then you take the depreciation amount off of the replacement cost for your insured value.

$190,000x50%=$85,000 (This happens to be the depreciation amount and the value because its exactly half)

$190,000x.27%=$51,300 (That is the amount the RC is reduced by so the home should be insured for $138,700)

So if you have a partial claim lets say for $10,000, the depreciation still applies. With a frame home the payout would be $5,000 minus the deductible and a brick home would be $7,300 minus deductible.

Now this is all a best guess at what your ACV could be. A claims adjuster would come through at the time of a claim and depreciate everything according to age and care to determine a value.

All that being said, being insured for RC while the company will only pay ACV means you are probably over-insured. From a claims perspective you will be fine. The problem is you are paying premiums for $190,000 of coverage when the carrier is not going to pay that out when you have a claim.

Hopefully this reply is useful for you.

To start, landlord policies offer far less coverage than a homeowners policy. Your personal belongings are a lot less and your covered perils will probably be less. A lot of homeowners policies are an all risk policy to include theft. Landlord policies usually spell out the coverages (which are a lot less than homeowners policies) and you purchase coverage a la carte.

Landlord policies coverage for coverage are usually more expensive than homeowners policies. However, you can strip the policy down to a basic fire dwelling policy without additional coverages and it will probably be less than what you are paying now.

My conclusion is landlord policies are more expensive for the same coverage because of the risk of an unknown tenant who is not the owner and does not show the home the same care as a homeowner. But most landlord policies are stripped down to the basics which makes them SEEM less expensive.

Your best option would be to speak with an agent. No one can tell if you need an umbrella until your risk assessment has been done. Liability insurance is designed to protect your assets, whatever they are. So once you are able to determine your risk you can then determine how much liability protection you need. All that being said, I dont think you can ever go wrong with an umbrella.

There was an article in the insurance journal I thought the members here might want to see. I found it interesting.

How to Encourage Private Flood Insurance; Why Delaying Biggert-Waters Is Not the Answer

If you want the safest answer it would be to tell the bank what is going on. They may be ok with it because they are not looking for inventory right now so you may not have a problem. Trying anything else does create a risk for you. Although almost always its not a problem, there is noone here that can gaurantee you wont have a problem except your bank.