Renting? Make Sure You're Covered.

9/3/2019 (Permalink)

Owning rental property can be a very lucrative investment. If you’re lucky you might even make a small fortune with very little effort. But rental properties can also drain you, physically and financially. Allowing tenants to rent your property for any period of time should be done with great caution. Contacting references, performing credit checks and verifying the identity of those applying and planning to live in your investments, are simple yet critical steps you should consider taking if you own and manage rental properties.

In your own home, if something goes wrong, you’re able to respond in the way that you see fit. Say a pipe bursts, you know (hopefully) where your main water shut-off valve is and you’re able to stop further damage from occurring. In rental properties this is not always the case. This brings us to the importance of INSURANCE! As an organization that works daily with insurance adjusters, agents and homeowners filing claims with their homeowners’ policies, we see both sides of the industry and we understand the frustration when finding out your coverage is not what you had hoped for.

Rental property insurance should be one of the most researched decisions you make in beginning your rental investment venture. If you’ve convinced yourself that nothing will go wrong, nothing will break and surely nobody will vandalize your property, think again. It will inevitably happen, and likely when you’re least prepared or unable to get to the home in time to help the tenants. Review your policy carefully with your agent to ensure that all aspects of the property have coverage, this may take some time but will surely save you a headache in the event of a disaster.

It would also be wise to promote or even require that your tenants have a renters insurance policy. This covers their personal belongings, in most policies. Young and inexperienced renters often assume that your insurance covers their furniture, electronics, etc. Sadly, this is not the case and they face hardship when trying to replace what might have been damaged in a fire, water or mold situation.

As always, if you do find yourself with water, fire, mold or vandalism in your rental property – give SERVPRO of The Dutch Fork a call (803) 749-0178