Wednesday 9 March 2011

Brief guide to Landlord Insurance

A person puts in the savings of his lifetime when he goes about investing in property.The household goods and personal belongings represents many years of financial and emotional investment over the time that you make for your dreams to come true.So it becomes our duty that to make sure that we have covered all the risk factors to safeguard our life time's biggest investment.Landlord Insurance is one such important thing that you need to have to insure that you have safeguarded your property.Whether you are a professional builder who invests huge amount in real estate or a normal person who has just rented his second property to provide support to his income you both have one thing in common you need a Landlord Insurance policy,since just because you now don't live in that place doesn't mean it's not yours now it's the fruit of your entire life's hard work.

Landlord Insurance Policy aims to cover landlords or property owners financial losses at times when they are not able to use their property to earn income.Now there can be a number of circumstances when a landlord is not able to utilize his rented property.Some of them can be dispute between landlord and tenant,property gets damaged to an extent that it's not possible anymore to in habitat that building.In such cases what you need isLandlord Insurance.However, before going to buy it you must carefully read it to make sure that it is comprehensive enough to cover you against most of the odd situations.

A normal Landlord Insurance would safeguard your interest against perils like natural disasters which include earthquake,lighting,flood,storm,fire etc.Most of them include coverage against theft of belongings to landlord and any malicious damage done to the premises of the building.However each policy differs in its coverage some cover only exterior of the building some only interiors and also policy mentions the things that can be taken under coverage in case of any damage so please read the offer document carefully before choosing anyone.Now if you want your policy to be more exhaustive one you can include your policy to have coverage for legal expenses to pursue legal case for damages and other things against tenants who have breached their tenancy agreements.Other things that can be included in a Landlord Insurance are optional coverage to accidental damages,terrorism,liability insurance,insurance to libel which means an attempt to degrade your public reputation or discrimination practices.So more options you wanna include in your coverage you can but obviously you then need to pay the premium according to that only so just be more cautious when you go to buy a comprehensive insurance or one which just list down things covered.

Now this Landlord Insurance works like just other policies.They give you two options to cover your assets,one is actual cash value and the other one is the replacement value.Now most of the people go for settlement by actual cash value settlement because it generally amounts to low premium values for the landlords.When a landlord goes for a claim against some damage covered under the policy the company first subtracts the depreciation cost from the current market price of the property and accordingly compensate the landlord so this generally accounts for low premium.However if you opt for replacement value in your Landlord Insurance Policy then company bears the cost of once refurbishment of the damaged property.Again it depends what all things are covered under the replacement contract otherwise by default it is settlement against cash value.However if it comes under replacement value part only no depreciation is considered by the companies and they around with actual market price.

Now if you want to lower the burden on your pocket regarding your yearly premium for aLandlord Insurance policy you can avail a feature called as deductible offered by the companies in which landlord agrees to a amount of money which he/she would bear in case of any damage to the property.More is the deductible part you go for more heavier discounts you are bound to receive but again that thing basically is decreasing the coverage from insurer so wisely choose the part that you want to pay under deductible.

Another thing to keep in mind here is that many people think there property is covered under Home insurance which is not true.Home insurance policies are not valid if you are earning from your property so you need a separate Landlord Insurance.There are number of other policies available in the market some of which are Landlord Liability Insurance,Landlord Property Insurance,Landlord Rental Insurance etc.Each one concentrating on the specific feature as the name suggest which you can include in your comprehensive Landlord Insurance Policy.

So Landlord Insurance is not something which you must have legally but its a precautionary measure that you must take to protect your future and investments because no matter how good a tenant is he is never going to care about your property you feel about it so it becomes your responsibility to cover your assets properly so you don't have to look here and there in turbulent times. 

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