It is a great time of year to make sure you are fully covered for your investment property! When looking at your coverage, be sure to keep these things in mind:
Property Value
The value of homes has increased significantly over the last few years and so have costs to remodel/ build. Does your insurance cover new build costing if it is a complete loss? We recommend speaking with a local builder to get a general cost per square foot you’d be looking at for a complete build.
Value of Contents
Don’t sell yourself short! You need a minimum of $50K for furnishings, decor, small appliances, etc. in any property. This could drastically go up depending on your home. While our Design and Make Ready pricing is very reasonable for the property owners we manage for, this cost could drastically go up if you are hiring a third party for the procurement and assembly.
Liability
We recommend your liability limits should meet or exceed the value of your investment property or $1 million minimum, whichever is greater.
Loss of Rents
Paying for loss of rent in the event of an occurrence is not something all insurance companies offer. Quite frankly, we often recommend not paying for this relatively high cost of insurance if you can easily afford your investment property with no rental income. However, if that is not your scenario, this coverage may be of interest of you and something you want to ask your insurance company/ broker about!
Naming Additional Insured
At A Stay Above The Rest, we require all of our property owners to name us as an additional insured. This allows for the two of us to fight an occurrence as one rather than each of our insurance companies coming after each other. If we are not managing your property, we recommend checking with your PM company on their policies!
Shopping Around
Our industry has grown tremendously in recent years. Several years ago your options for insurance coverage were far less than today. We recommend shopping around to make sure you are getting the best rate with a company who is receiving high praises from other investors!
One avenue is to speak with an insurance broker. If you do not know of an insurance broker, we recommend asking local FB pages to your investment property who they like and go with. Sometimes it may even be less expensive for you to go with a smaller local insurance company, so we like to use local brokers when dealing with properties you do not live near.
Which Insurance Company To Go With:
We cannot legally recommend any companies. In fact, between ourselves and our property owners we have had so few insurance claims that we really can’t tell you our preference. However, we have compiled a list of companies who do offer coverage for short-term rentals and all of these companies have been or are being used by at least one of our property owners.
- Travelers Insurance (https://www.travelers.com/)
- American Modern (https://www.amig.com/insurance/)
- US Home Insurance (https://us-home-insurance.com/)
- USAA offers STR insurance if you qualify to use them for banking (military in the immediate or extended family)
- Statefarm (https://www.statefarm.com/insurance/home-and-property/rental-properties)
- Proper Insurance (https://www.proper.insure/) (they are pricey and have strict requirements of properties from what I’ve seen… they do offer loss of rent, though)
PLEASE NOTE:: While we do believe we are experts in the short-term rental industry, we are not insurance experts! It is very important to speak to an insurance company or broker and ensure you are properly insured for your investment portfolio. Be sure to consult with experts to determine the proper coverage for your unique situation.
Here is another blog post we have explaing STR insurance… We highly recommend the read- it gives some good info: https://www.astayabovetherest.com/2018/09/28/short-term-rental-insurance-understanding-your-coverage/