Only renewing landlord's insurance (apartment) near end of contract

[Morbius]

These days it is illegal to rent out a place in Qld without at least public liability insurance, so the approach would not be legal here unless you can get public liability insurance on its own elsewhere.

Echo the comments of the previous poster on top of accidental damage and its closeness to "fair wear and tear".

Example. Your tenant does not control their kid and s/he draws all over the walls, causing you to have to spend $2k on paintjobs. Accidental damage? nope. Malicious damage? nope. Fair wear and tear? According to your policy, yes. Not insured.

Of course, if it was insured, then policies would be much more expensive.

 

[brettc]

Example. Your tenant does not control their kid and s/he draws all over the walls, causing you to have to spend $2k on paintjobs. Accidental damage? nope. Malicious damage? nope. Fair wear and tear? According to your policy, yes. Not insured.

Of course, if it was insured, then policies would be much more expensive.

That will depend on the policy, there are certainly policies that will treat this as Accidental Damage. The difficulty can be if it's just a long term thing throughout the tenancy rather than a specific incident that occurs.

 

[Morbius]

That will depend on the policy, there are certainly policies that will treat this as Accidental Damage. The difficulty can be if it's just a long term thing throughout the tenancy rather than a specific incident that occurs.

Fair enough, although I wish people luck with convincing an assessor that drawing in more than just one or two places is a single specific incident.

By the way I am not being critical of the insurance companies here. They have to make their wedge and as long as you shop around a bit, you can find a policy where the premium is commensurate with coverage and risk. I am more trying to help people understand what to expect.

To tell the truth, I am most interested in insuring the things that I cannot defend my self against that would blow me out of the water. If I could find a policy that gave me $10M liability insurance and covered me for a tenant turning my property into a crack kitchen or equivalent disaster (e.g. building burning down and the OC's insurance having lapsed or not covering, three months plus of unleasibility, etc) only, I would happily dispense with contents insurance altogether.

 

[brettc]

By the way I am not being critical of the insurance companies here. They have to make their wedge and as long as you shop around a bit, you can find a policy where the premium is commensurate with coverage and risk. I am more trying to help people understand what to expect.

And that's absolutely the case. Many people seem to think that simply everything should be covered under a policy. That in fact could happen, but with greater risk and claims comes a higher premium. A policy could have no exclusions but is anyone willing to pay say $1,500 instead of $300 for a landlord policy?

Funny though, I still remember a claim almost 20 years ago, landlord had paid about $180 for a policy in Sydney. They made a claim for around $12,000, some of which wasn't covered and were paid about $10,500. They went ballistic and stated that it obviously wasn't worth them taking out the insurance in the first place. You can't please everyone.

As you say, it's a case of balancing the premium against the cover and the risks you are willing to absorb.