A homeowners policy is written for an owner who lives in the house. Once the house is rented, the risk changes: the person living there has no stake in the building, the owner is not there to notice a leak, and any injury on the property becomes a claim against a business, so carriers write rented homes on a dwelling fire form instead. Keeping a homeowners policy on a home you have moved out of is the common mistake, and it surfaces at the worst time, when a carrier finds a tenant on a policy that assumes an owner.
The dwelling fire forms come in three grades. The basic form covers a short list of named perils, fire and lightning and a few others, and settles at actual cash value; the broad form adds more perils; the special form covers the building on an open-peril basis, everything not excluded, and is what an owner with a mortgage and a decent property should carry. Contents coverage on all three is for what the landlord owns, the stove, the refrigerator, the washer, not the tenant's belongings.
Rented single-family homes around Phoenix, Las Vegas, Salt Lake and Boise are mostly stucco or frame on slab, with the risks a home policy knows: monsoon roofs, wind, water from an old supply line, a tenant who leaves the tap running. A duplex or fourplex is still a landlord policy; a larger building is usually a commercial property policy.
The premium is set from the building's replacement cost, construction, age and roof, the location, the form chosen, the liability limit, the number of units, whether the tenancy is short-term or long-term, and the owner's claims record. The analysis looks at the current policy, checks that the form matches the tenancy, that the liability limit fits what you own, and that the rent loss coverage would actually carry a vacancy through a rebuild.
