All Forum Posts by: Owen Rosen

What carrier is that with? Impossible to answer without running an actual quote.  I am licensed in Texas but it's not one of my primary states for home insurance at this time. Mostly rental homes, business, and life.  That said, there are other good agents here and I'm sure you can get the necessary help.

I'm an independent broker AND I work with Steadily among many other companies. Happy to provide advice and guidance.

 15+ years of experience, access to the top carriers, and happy to help.

 Great!

 We shouldn't recommend liability amounts without having any idea what we're trying to protect.  If someone has $50 million in assets a $1 million policy isn't appropriate, etc.

 This isn't really accurate or clear.  Single family rentals are not usually insured on a business owners policy.  Business owners policies OR rental home policies do not automatically include more liability coverage.  

An umbrella will not automatically cover anything especially if they're unaware of the exposure.  For instance, if you have an umbrella policy and decide to purchase a boat even if you properly insure the boat you won't necessarily have coverage from the umbrella unless you make them aware you now own a boat.  The insurance company needs to know so they can charge the appropriate premium for the risk.  Same with adding another home or rental property.

It all depends on what assets you have and are trying to protect.  Make sure you change your homeowners policy to a non-owner occupied policy and speak to your agent about your plans.

 If you purchased proper insurance that indicated the duplex was vacant and under construction it's unlikely "loss of rent" would be included in such a policy since there is no rent unfortunately.

If your insurance didn't indicate the property was vacant and under construction that could be another issue altogether but you didn't actually have any lost income so coverage would not likely apply.

In general, it's ultra critical to speak with your insurance agent about vacancies as related to insurance before a claim.  This includes vacancies at the start of a policy or mid-term.  Get answers in writing when possible.

Not quite sure what you mean by what kind of insurance - please elaborate if possible.  As for asking tenants to get renters insurance I'd strongly recommend adding that to future lease agreements and requiring proof of coverage.

 Before I give my 2 cents I realize things are very difficult in California right now for insurance.  Rather than focus solely on the insurance company (in this case Farmers) I would strongly recommend speaking with an Independent Agent (not Farmers, State Farm, Allstate, etc.) that has access to multiple insurance providers.  A (good) experienced independent agent will typically be much more sophisticated in working with investors and landlords and have the ability to problem solve for you whereas a captive agent will only have 1 or 2 options at most typically.

As for your second question, yes, there are many companies that offer discounts for multiple properties and can insure multiple properties on the same master policy.  Much of that depends on how many properties, where they are, the type of coverage needed, their age/condition, and more!