Anyone own a condo rental property? Insurance question

nordke

Due to sad state of the housing market, I am having to rent out my condo rather than trying to sell it and get rid of it. It's been a frustration, but tolerable until recently when there was a water back-up in the common-line plumbing of the building, which all backed up into my kitchen sink, all over my kitchen flooring and carpeting, which now needs to be replaced. Biggest frustration though is that my insurance isn't covering it because I'm using it as rental (if I was still living there I'd be covered...makes no sense to me). And of course my association says that they won't pay for anything since the association isn't responsible for flooring. Any recommendations of good insurance companies to look into that will cover back-ups from common-line plumbing? So far I've checked with State Farm and Liberty Mutual and they both said they don't cover it. This also isn't the first time this has happened. It's definitely the worse, but not the first so all I can think of is how much is it going to cost me, again, when this happens, again. Ugh!!!

sjb&apa

Did you switch your insurance policy when the condo became a rental instead of owner-occupied? Because you should have - a regular homeowner policy on a condo is not the same as a policy for a rental property. We had to switch insurance companies because our previous insurance (AAA) did not offer coverage on rental properties.

Our rental property insurance policy is through Liberty Mutual. It does cover things like flooring, and also includes some liability coverage that isn't usually covered in owner-occupied condo insurance policies.

We also got a quote from State Farm when when we were turning our condo into a rental - and they gave us a quote that included things like flooring. We didn't go with them because their prices were quite a bit higher.

Maybe some agents withing a company deal in insurance for rentals and some don't? Maybe try call a different State Farm or Liberty Mutual office?

If you want to PM me, I can give you the names of the agents with State Farm and Liberty Mutual that we got quotes from.

nordke

Yes, I've had it covered as rental property since I started renting it out a few years ago. Flooring is covered, if it's due to something happening within my condo, like if the garbage disposal broke and the sink flooded over because of that. Because the cause of the flooding was in the common-line outside my unit, that's where I'm getting screwed. Basically what I've been told I need is an endorsement of sewer back-up from a common-line, but the few places I've called so far have said they don't do that for rental properties. My lady at State Farm said she called their commercial division to make sure what she was being told by others was correct, and they verified it. They still can't explain to me though why I'd be covered for this if I was living there, but not now I'm renting it out.