What Insurance & Which Company?

[graemeh]

No, at the time I took it out it was underwritten by NZI who have since been taken over by IAG.

IAG own State as well.

[NESW]

Fingers burned, a lesson learnt.

Not surprising....

However the conditions or rules of our LL policy didn't changed much between the time we took it out and time of claiming, so I don't finger point at IAG but the terms of the policy itself.

We obviously were not covered in the way we "assumed" we were covered ie we "thought" the policy gave us backup of 12 months loss of rent coverage should anything go wrong, which in reality in our case doesn't apply as the tenant wasn't found officially responsible for the fire.


Our mistake, so others please learn from it and see if your LL policies cover you if no one is found to blame for damaging your home and thus causing the property to be untenantable.

Also be aware that if your house insurance pays you a limit of loss of rent (ours did up to $11250 from memory) the LL policy will deduct that from the 12 months loss of rent coverage under their policy conditions.... its not in addition to the 12 months "coverage"....

[Perry]

Also be aware that if your house insurance pays you a limit of loss of rent (ours did up to $11250 from memory) the LL policy will deduct that from the 12 months loss of rent coverage under their policy conditions.... its not in addition to the 12 months "coverage"....

No matter that I read and re-read that,
I can't make sense of it. Senile decay?
Please try again with shorter words.

[NESW]

sorry Perry its probably my description that has you stumped. Its all a bit "raw" for me.

Here goes:

Our house insurance policy had a limited of $11,250 to cover our temp. accomodation costs should the house have been our residence.

Or as in our case, a limit of $11,250 for loss of rental income.

Our "LL preferred" policy had a limit of 12 months loss of rental income coverage.

However I was advised that had LL preferred policy "accepted" the loss as being the tenants fault, they would still have NOT paid 12 months loss of rent.

What they would have done was liaise with the house insurer over loss of rental income payments, and when that money ran out - May 2008 - then the LL policy would have kicked in until the 12 month anniversay of loss of rent - October 2008.

So in practice we would have seen about 5 months of rental coverage from the LL preferred policy, not 12....

Does that help or have I made it worse?

[Traff]

Insurance use a broker

Ring Greg Fritelli at Insurance and Lending ltd 09 448 2094 or 0275100401- they have all our policies,business,public liability, home, car ,investments - he is great and competitive.

Say I referred you

Cheers

Mark Trafford

[mortgage broker]

Hello guys - I sell insurance as well. You want to check out a couple of things when taking Land lords insurance in terms of loss rents.

Make sure you understand your responsibilities under the policy.

Certain policies require you to do the following:

flat inspections 6 monthly, you must register the bond with tenancy services of at least 3 weeks, must obtain satisfactory references when selecting tenants, certain conditions on actions to take after rent is missed, daily monitoring.

Please make sure you always read the full policy when taking these.

[NESW]

Out of interest MB, how many of the LL policies still pay out for loss of rent if its not deemed the tenants fault?

You are spot on though re inspection and the like. In our case we also had to provide evidence proving our maintenance routine on the property, if I was self managing and undertaking maintenance, I would now (in hindsight) ensure that the tenant signed off on any maintenance I had self completed.

We were "fortunate" though that our electricians had been working on our meter board roughly 1 month before the fire. They were "interviewed" and deemed our board (which is where our fire started) in proper condition... as was the rest of our maintenance expenditure to others.

[Perry]

I appreciate that it is still a rankle and I don't
want to rub salt in the wounds. All what you
say tells me that insurance companies may be
heading down the rankings to languish with
politicians and used car sales staff.

Or lower, down there with the IRD.

Did you find/see the Disable smilies in text
option? It's down below the posting window,
under Additional Options.

[NESW]

...
Did you find/see the Disable smilies in text
option? It's down below the posting window,
under Additional Options.

many thanks for the heads up, usually I quite like the little critters but the was starting to annoy...

[mortgage broker]

If the property is not livable in due to other external causes some policies will pay the loss of rent. They usually have a max limit though. Plus some have legal defence expenses for the tenancy tribunal.

[NESW]

If the property is not livable in due to other external causes some policies will pay the loss of rent. They usually have a max limit though. Plus some have legal defence expenses for the tenancy tribunal.

Any you would like to name as being "better" policies than others?

[mortgage broker]

Depends what you want covered, Pro Sure insurance is ok a lot of benefits - covers malicous damage as well as gradual damage. But not the cheapest.

AIG is a bit cheaper. If you want a qoute I can get someone to call you.

But I think basically the features you want the more you pay, I think its very common for insurer to expect some written references before taking on a tenant.

[NESW]

Many thanks for the heads up MB, I know with our LL policy the tenant had to have good references as well, which I think is fair enough.

I certainly will be reading the fine print for the next tenant signed up for one of my rentals before taking on any more LL insurance.

[Perry]

So no insured LL could offer accommodation
to fresh immigrants from o'seas, who had
left their own home to come to NZ and whom
would not therefore have references?

I wonder if "no references" is a valid reason
for declining a tenant? Anyone tried that?
Anyone had/seen it tested at the TT? Is
the RTA silent on such a thing, too?

[Heg]

Specialist Landlord Insurance - is it worth it?

Hi
Just wanted to find out who has what in the way of insurance.
We have 4 properties with ISL but have just received our renewal notice and the price of annual insurance for 1 year is now $935.10 This is for a 3bed weatherboard worth about $280k in Papakura.

We have 4 properties with ISL and our others are with AMI on a standard rental property insurance. (costing us around $400 PA)
I realise that ISL have a 'better than standard' product, but is it really worth it?
Your comments please fellow PT'ers