What landlord / rental property insurance covers

Dwelling pays to repair or rebuild the building after a covered loss, at replacement cost on the special form or actual cash value on the basic form. Other structures covers a detached garage, a block wall, a shed or a casita. The limit should be the rebuild cost, not the market price or the loan balance; on a Salt Lake bungalow the two are far apart in both directions. Ordinance or law coverage, which pays the added cost of bringing an old building to current code on rebuild, is an add-on worth carrying on any home older than the current code cycle.

When a covered loss makes the unit uninhabitable, loss of rents, also called fair rental value, pays the rent you would have collected for the time it takes to repair, subject to a limit or a number of months. It does not pay for a tenant who simply leaves or stops paying, and it does not pay during ordinary turnover. On a property where the rent covers the mortgage, this coverage is what keeps the loan current after a fire.

Liability pays if a tenant, a guest or a contractor is injured on the property and claims the owner was negligent, and it defends the suit. The claims are stairs, railings, a dog the tenant keeps, a pool, ice on a walkway in Idaho. Landlord forms also offer personal injury coverage for claims of wrongful eviction, wrongful entry and invasion of privacy, which arise from a landlord's actions rather than a hazard on the property and are excluded without it. A personal umbrella can extend over a landlord policy, and for an owner with several rentals it usually should.

Contents on a landlord policy covers appliances, window coverings, furniture in a furnished unit, and the tools and mower kept on the property for maintenance. It does not cover the tenant's belongings, which is why a lease that requires renters insurance is in both parties' interest: the tenant's policy pays for their things and carries their own liability, and a kitchen fire the tenant starts can be recovered from it.

Every landlord form has a vacancy clause that limits or removes coverage after a unit has been empty for a stated period, because empty buildings suffer vandalism, freezing and undetected water. Between tenants the owner should tell the carrier and buy a vacancy endorsement if the gap will run long. Short-term rental, on a booking platform or otherwise, is a different exposure with different forms; a landlord policy written for a twelve-month tenant may exclude it, and the platform's coverage is a backstop rather than a policy.