Landlord insurance.

[Marina]

I have just been comparing 2 landlord insurance policies, and have realised that my EBM Rentcover Ultra does not cover for

-Burglary or theft, unless caused by Tenants.

It also does not cover for Malicious acts, unless caused by Tenant.

It states quite clearly that you are not insured if loss or damage, theft or burglary was caused by visitors.

Terry Sheer Landlord Preferred actually covers for Theft or damage due to theft carried out by persons including your tenant's or their family or your tenant's guests.

It also covers for malicious damage carried out by persons including your tenants or their tenants family or your tenants guests.

It seems like the EBM policy is not as comprehensive as I thought it to be.

I am wondering if I should change policies???

Thanks
Marina.

 

[Sunstone]

Dear Marina,

If you are going to go down the road of landlords insurance suggest that you also examine "Landlords Property One" which is put out by AON/CGU and is recommended by most real estate agents that I deal with.

From the feedback I have received they have said that the Terri Sheer is a slightly cheaper policy but has many more limitations compared to the AON/CGU one which reduces it's financial effectiveness as a direct comparision.

Cheers,

Sunstone.

 

[gss]

landlords insurance

Marina,
also check out National Aust. banks "Residential Investor Insurance".

 

[clucker]

Hi Marina, you've actually got this completely wrong but I can understand why you may have misunderstood. The RentCoverPlus 'Ultra' policy (now known simply as RentCoverUltra) does certainly cover burglary and damage by people other than your tenants. The 'Ultra' policy is actually the cobination of two separate policies but packaged together.

One is the standard RentCover Plus policy which covers tenant-realted risks such as loss of rent and malicious and accidental damage by the tenant, as well as legal expenses and a whole hos of other risks. the second is a 'defined events' contents policy that covers the more traditional risks such as fire, storm and water damage, as well as theft and damage by intruders. Also covered is $20,000,000 legal liability.

When reading the policy wording it can be a little confusing as under the "RentCover Plus" section it will exclude fire and theft by an intruder (for example), but you need to read this in conjunction with the "Ultra" contents wording, which is where these risks are covered.

I've been in the industry for 16 years and to be honest, you will find it hard to track down a more comprehensive policy. If you need further explanation please feel free to let me know.

I know this is a very old post but having come across it would at least rather set the record straight.

 

[handyandy]

I know this is a very old post but having come across it would at least rather set the record straight.

I really don't see that you have 'set the record straight'.

Marina was concerned about cover for visitors of the tenants

It states quite clearly that you are not insured if loss or damage, theft or burglary was caused by visitors.

A visitor of the tenant is not an intruder so where have you clarified that these visitors are covered?

Cheers

 

[clucker]

I really don't see that you have 'set the record straight'.

Marina was concerned about cover for visitors of the tenants

A visitor of the tenant is not an intruder so where have you clarified that these visitors are covered?

Cheers

No problem I am happy top clarify further, it's hard to get everything. My guess is that Marina is reading the Ultra Contents Wording in isolation. Damage and theft by both Tenants and their guests is covered under the RentCover Plus section. It is normal for policies to exclude something under one section and pay for it under another, take for example a normal defined risks building policy:

Under the "Malicious Damage" section they may exclude Malicious Damage by a tenant, therefore a fire started deliberately would not be paid. Under the fire section however it will generally not exclude fire caused maliciously by a tenant, so a claim would simply be paid under that section.

In the case of RentCoverUltra the policy pays damage and theft by the Tenant, and the Tenant is defined (in the policy) as "The person(s) named on the Lease and who occupy the premises, including members of their family residing with them and their invitees." Importantly it includes "invitees".

I trust this calrifies?

 

[austini]

Hi Clucker,

Thanks for this info.

I must admit that I had been using EBM's Rentcover Plus "Ultra" in the past but have recently started transferring my polices over to Terri Scheer based on the assumptions outlined by the initial poster. Scheer's Landlords policy clearly states that: accidental loss or damage / malicious damage / theft or damage due to theft carried out by your "tenants or their family or your tenant's guests" is covered.

However like the original poster it didn't seem clear to me that all these were covered according to EBM's documentation. But based our what you have just posted it seems that perhaps these are covered. Maybe EBM's policy document needs to be more clearly worded as there must be others like me who have moved to other insurers due to what could perhaps be a misinterpretation of the policy wording.

Now I know the first thing that is probably going through some people's heads is why not just ring up and ask. Well over the last few years I have been given so much incorrect information by insurance sale's people (that conflicted with their own policy documents and underwritter when I pushed for confirmation) I now only rely on what is written in the policy document. This is not by any means suggesting that this is the case with EBM but it has happened so many times with other insurers that I no longer trust word of mouth from an insurance sales person or telephone representative.

Cheers - Gordon

 

[clucker]

Thanks for your comments Gordon. The reason it i swritten that way is actually more a victim of circumstances. The Terri Scheer policy is a single policy that takes all these events in, RentCoverUltra is a package of two products. There are technical reasons as to why it has been left like that including the way the Fire Services Levy is applied in some states (resulting in lower premiums), but moves have been made recently to change the way it is worded to remove this confusion.

I guess a similar problem may occur with the newly released RentCoverPlatinum which is a combined Building and Landlord policy for houses with heavily discounted premiums, so this is one the wording will need to be looked at further as well.

 

[austini]

Thanks again Clucker,

Based on your post I will investigate further before transferring any more policies to Terri Scheer. Other than the previously discussed items EBM's policy seems a little more generous with limits and premiums etc and I like that it has a single contact point. Terri Scheer is state based and given we move around regularly I like simple adminstration.

Cheers - Gordon

 

[clucker]

No problem Gordon, there are so many policies out there today (and some are really poor unfortunately) that it's not surprising it's confusing. I've been in it for 16 years and it still takes some figuring to truly compare policies, it's often what they don't say rather than what they do.

Good luck.

 

[Xenia]

You may also want to look at whether the policy you are talking about will include the bond amount in claims!

If you make a claim with cgu they include the bond amount and deduct it from the total calim that is paid. If there is no bond lodged by the tenants then they make one up! We've had this happen before so we are no longer with them.

TS pay out the claim irrespective of what the bond is so you can use the bond to claim for other things or leave it there for later if you need it. They are a much better policy!

 

[clucker]

You may also want to look at whether the policy you are talking about will include the bond amount in claims!

If you make a claim with cgu they include the bond amount and deduct it from the total calim that is paid. If there is no bond lodged by the tenants then they make one up! We've had this happen before so we are no longer with them.

TS pay out the claim irrespective of what the bond is so you can use the bond to claim for other things or leave it there for later if you need it. They are a much better policy!

That's very true, people often just look at the price rather than consider what happens when a claim is made. Also check the actual excesses that are charged when a claim is made, some policies can really reduce claims dramatically. Specialist policies such as the Terri Scheer Landlord Preferred policy and EBM's RentCoverUltra have no excess on loss of rent claims at all which are the most common claims (TS does have an excess in Qld but not other states). There are other policies that do the same but a lot of the generic ones can have quite a few excesses.

 

[The Judge]

I would also like to add that when you wish to make a claim is often when you find out how good your insurance policy really is. I had reason to make a claim with EBM Ultra cover recently and found the claim process to be very simple, so am happy with them