Law question/advice -- specifically landlord/tenant

lauren grier

lauren grier

you're like stars
So I just received a letter from housing that states the following

Please be advised, effective immediately all tenants must secure and maintain Apartment Homeowners Insurance. The insurance will protect your personal possessions in the event of a property loss to your building, such as fire. As you know, the landlord is not responsible for paying for losses to the contents of your apartment. Please call the undersigned within 5 days to schedule an appointment to review the Apartment Homeowners Insurance Policy. Thank you in advance for your cooperation. Please call our office if you have any questions
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Now, I'm not opposed to insurance- obviously- but.. hey can't FORCE me to buy it (and apparently through them :huh: ) can they? I've never heard of anything like this and this is my 4th or 5th apartment I've lived in.

Thanks :)
 
Wow. I've never heard of that before! I am a property manager and, at least in AZ, it is not REQUIRED to have Renter's Insurance. We always give them a little disclaimer about it though.
 
they may be able to request you carry insurance ... kind of like how a mortage or car loan company can. But I am sure you can go thru whichever company you want too.
 
I would think that as long as you HAVE renters insurance (which is what I've heard it called), then you can't get in trouble. I can inagine they can force you to use their company.

I had renter insurance with the same ppl that I had my car insurance when I was renting. It was like $85 for a year.
 
I think they can make you carry it. It's fairly common now. But they cannot tell you who to carry it through.
 
Amber1279 said:
they may be able to request you carry insurance ... kind of like how a mortage or car loan company can. But I am sure you can go thru whichever company you want too.
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exactly what I was thinking. I have heard of landlords requiring tenants to carry insurance but it should be up to you who you get it through.
 
i can't find anything that says that they can require you by state law.. but it might be an individual thing. it's probably to save themselves if something were to happen. know what i mean?

insurance can be pretty reasonable. col is right, you can usually get it through your car insurance company.
 
It's a good idea to carry renter's insurance anyways regardless if you are required to or not. My SIL (DH's sister) was just in a devestating apartment fire last weekend in Nashville and lost EVERYTHING (Luckily the sentimental stuff was still in the attic at her moms) Her renter's insurance is covering everything for her and super fast as well.
 
FlirtatiousBrat said:
It's a good idea to carry renter's insurance anyways regardless if you are required to or not. My SIL (DH's sister) was just in a devestating apartment fire last weekend in Nashville and lost EVERYTHING (Luckily the sentimental stuff was still in the attic at her moms) Her renter's insurance is covering everything for her and super fast as well.
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Agreed. I always had renter's.
 
well I don't have a car haha so there's no car insurance company to go through. I'm not saying that I refuse to get insurance-- it's not exactly an expense I was intending on adding or anything-- but moreso I refuse to go through THEM. There isn't even any company info in the letter just the #'s for housing.

Oh and yes I live in RI :) ty girls.
 
lauren grier said:
So I just received a letter from housing that states the following




Now, I'm not opposed to insurance- obviously- but.. hey can't FORCE me to buy it (and apparently through them :huh: ) can they? I've never heard of anything like this and this is my 4th or 5th apartment I've lived in.

Thanks :)
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When in doubt call your legal aid office. That is what they are there for. Here in WA State they cannot force you to buy an insurance policy through them. They are a last resort incase you can't get it anywhere else. The State always charges more than an insurance co. would. Pemco is the cheapest insurance I have found. Understand though, insurance companies can now run credit checks on you and determine what you pay according to your credit. We can thank the Bush administration for that. Sorry if I offended anyone, but it is the truth.
 
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Yes they can make you have it.. it's fairly cheap. At least here, and through Allstate, renters premiums are not determined by your IS score, only auto and homeowners are. Renters here is $112 a year for $10,000 in coverage.

Also, just re the credit checks...insurance companies don't check your credit. There's a number linked to your credit report called an IS score. It's just a number, for homeowners it's between 1-30, auto 1-30, renters 1-5. It's a common misconception that we actually pull your credit report, which we do not do. All we get is a number. :)
 
so.. apparently my state doesn't allow me to get quotes for renters insurance online. LOL just making this more difficult for me.
 
Yeah. I don't think that they can MAKE you, although it is a good idea. At the storage place that we rent from, they started to tell us that we had to have it, and of course, they offer to PROVIDE it to us. The woman actually admitted that it is a new service that they offer and have been told to push it by saying that we HAVE to have it, and get this.. through them. There is a place on our new contract where we initial that says that we waived the offer.

It is a good idea to have it though, I had friends that lived under some less intelligent(I will be nice) tenents that thought it would be fun to play with the fire sprinklers one night. Well, they broke off the sprinkler and it flooded their apt, the one under them(my friends) and half of the two apts, next to them. Sorry, not to give you horror stories! Good luck with this.
 
We always had it too, especially after I got my diamond as a jewelry rider on your rental/home owner's policy is the only way to insure it.

LA, even if you don't have a car insurance policy, companies like Liberty Mutual have all kinds of insurance. Heck, I bet Allstate has it too, oh Sara....

it's under $100 a year too if I can remember
 
We had to have renter's insurance for our old apartment here--but we could get it through anyone. Ours was like $13/month.
 
kscwgirl said:
Yes they can make you have it.. it's fairly cheap. At least here, and through Allstate, renters premiums are not determined by your IS score, only auto and homeowners are. Renters here is $112 a year for $10,000 in coverage.

Also, just re the credit checks...insurance companies don't check your credit. There's a number linked to your credit report called an IS score. It's just a number, for homeowners it's between 1-30, auto 1-30, renters 1-5. It's a common misconception that we actually pull your credit report, which we do not do. All we get is a number. :)
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I'm in Cali and have never heard of this before and now I'm curious. So what does this determine Sara? The better the score, the lower the premiums or vice versa?
 
Kat Stokes said:
I'm in Cali and have never heard of this before and now I'm curious. So what does this determine Sara? The better the score, the lower the premiums or vice versa?
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Yes, exactly. Like I said, it doesn't determine your premium for all policies, and it depends on the scoring system they use. Ours is a 1-30 scale. Others may be different, I don't know. State Farm will actually refuse to write you a policy if you have bad credit. Allstate doesn't refuse people based on credit and I think it's crazy that SF does, but whatever. Everything here is credit based except for renters.
 
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