Landlord Insurance

Hi,

I have two NRMA landlord insurance policies. This policy includes building and landlord, not contents. I was okay with this because the operator told me that since I wont be living in there, they are not my contents, thus the renter should get his own contents insurance.

The operator said that everything that is bolted down is covered, thus kitchen bench and warddrobes and fittings etc etc. However carpet is not covered. Which I am fine with.

In a conversation with someone, they mentioned thats not the case. So I guess I am confused...does everyone here have contents insurance on their properties? And if so...what does it cover? My thinking was that since most of the contents are the tenants...I shouldnt cover that, thats the renters responcibility.

Can someone clear things up for me?

Regards
 
Carpet is covered in my landlord's policy - how odd that yours doesn't. I've always had it covered by the building policy not the contents one. I had to claim on it one time when I got water damage through most of the house during one of those 100 year flash floods and needed all the carpets replaced. Their policy is if it gets wet, they replace it. Its not like your tenants supply the floor coverings and will happily replace them for you out of the goodness of their heart if they do something horrible to them while they are there ...

I just specified a few not-bolted-down contents on my policy to the value of about $3000, not contents per se - my kitchen cupboards in that house are just freestanding and perfectly stealable so had to be specified as contents. I'm not insuring someone else's stuff though.

I'm paying about $35 a month, and that's higher than it could be as I cranked all the excesses down as low as they could go as its such a cheap house. I paid a lot more for the same house when it was a house AND contents policy.
 
Not sure if they are outside of SA, but SGIC (dot com dot au). They've always been extremely good with normal claims, haven't made a LL claim yet.
 
Have you read the PDF you got with your policies?

Like Rixter, my LLI includes cover for $50K contents insurance. This is a seperate policy to building insurance; which in my instance is BC.

Specifically, things I'd want to make sure that were covered would be the cost of curtains/drapes, flyscreens, tap wear, heater/air conditioner (if not ducted), wall & floor tiles, lino, paint, kitchen appliances (oven, rangehood, dishwasher), hot water service, kitchen, bathroom cupboards/mirrors etc.

To determine what was covered by what policy I sat down and read the PDF's and then rang the insurers to clarify specifics. For a couple of items I couldn't be certain which policy they would be covered under, so for the sake of $60 pa, I've covered both bases. My thought process was that it's far cheaper to be over insured than under insured.

To compare costs with Rumpled, I'm paying $370 pa for $50K contents + LLI with a basic excess of $500 and rental default excess of $300. This does not cover Buildiing.

Cheers
Buddybee
 
Hi Daniel,
I always thought that the rule of thumb was: if you picked up the house, turned it upside down and shook it, anything that falls out is a content. Anything that stays put is fittings and fixtures (and thus covered by landlord's insurance). So it seems strange that the carpet isn't covered. I'd be finding a good general insurance broker and asking them to review.
Cheers, Medine
 
We have a house insured by NRMA. When the scumbag tenants left, we had to make two claims. The first was covered by the LL componant (loss of rent, etc), the second was covered by the Building componant (carpet). Therefore we had to cough up for two excesses. Top this with the fact that they have taken months to finalise all of this and I am still waiting for the second cheque. Apparently I should finally get it this week.:(

Lesson learnt! You get what you pay for. I have now switched all higher risk properties to a separate LL insurance.
 
When we had our (non-LL) claim with the same company we now have our LL insurance with, the assessor was doing the rounds as so many houses had been hit by flash floods the same day - we got 40mm in half an hour. I must have looked pregnant and frazzled (I was out the day before digging ditches and things to try and divert water), he threw in cash to cover laundering of all the towels and sheets we had soaked in muddy water trying to keep water out from under the doors, replaced the 20kg bags of mortar and plaster we'd hauled out as sandbags (ruined of course) and waived the excess :)

I'm almost the same amount pregnant as then right now, makes you nervous. We had a very impressive rainstorm last night but its lovely and dry inside today :D I guess 3kg of roofing screws and 4 tubes of roofing silicone finally cured the leak in bed3 that every neighbour within a block dutifully informed us of
 
We have a house insured by NRMA. When the scumbag tenants left, we had to make two claims. The first was covered by the LL componant (loss of rent, etc), the second was covered by the Building componant (carpet).

Skater
Did NRMA deduct the bond from the payment or could you use it to cover cleaning, yard maintenance and misc repairs?
 
Skater
Did NRMA deduct the bond from the payment or could you use it to cover cleaning, yard maintenance and misc repairs?

They deduct everything they can. They don't cover any cleaning. I really got no love from them at all. :(

I was aware of the limitations prior to using them for the insurance, so there was no surprises there. What I was not aware of was they they would charge double the excess if there was a claim for both building AND landlord, even though it was all caused by the same tenant AND that they would send out an assessor who deemed the damage to be less than it actually was.

The only reason I used them was price. With having more than a couple of IPs the cost for LL Insurance is quite high, so having to pay only a fraction of that amount together with the Building Insurance was quite attractive.

Another thing to consider, with I didn't realise at first, is that if you have your LL Insurance with a specialist in this field, you don't get charged extra premiums if you have a claim. Whereas with NRMA (and probably others similar), if you make a LL claim, you lose part of your no-claim-bonus on not only that property, but others as well. :(
 
They deduct everything they can. They don't cover any cleaning. I really got no love from them at all. :(

Join the club, I hate all insurers to the point where I'm considering self insuring. The only thing that stops me is public liability
 
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