Can I Buy a Policy on My Landlord's Building?

davecorp09

New Member
1
Is it legal to buy property insurance for a building I don't own? My landlord for my office building is wanting me to get insurance for the building. I understand getting liability insurance that would cover if I did something wrong. But my insurance paying if a lighting bolt hits the building?

Doesn't make any sense to me. It would be like me building a home policy for someone else's house. Or buying life insurance on some stranger's life.
 
Is it legal to buy property insurance for a building I don't own? My landlord for my office building is wanting me to get insurance for the building. I understand getting liability insurance that would cover if I did something wrong. But my insurance paying if a lighting bolt hits the building?

Doesn't make any sense to me. It would be like me building a home policy for someone else's house. Or buying life insurance on some stranger's life.

I am not a P&C guy but I think that type of insurance is pretty standard. Check with your agent.
 
Yes, it's a normal part of many leases. It's not the same as building insurance that your landlord will have (which will cover the lightning strike), but it covrs the landlord in the event you burn the building down.

I'm not sure what state you are in, but any commercial P&C agent in your area can set this up for you. They understand what is required.

Dan
 
Dan, is right. It's without a doubt a requirement in the lease you signed that you provide the property insurance on the building. It's quite typical.
 
I am not a P&C guy but I think that type of insurance is pretty standard. Check with your agent.

I wasn't thinking clear this morning. Certainly it is pretty standard. This is true of every triple net lease. A lease in which the lessee pays rent to the lessor, as well as all taxes, insurance, and maintenance expenses that arise from the use of the property. Such lease are very common.
 
Typically this is what will happen, and I guess may vary from state to state. You take out a business owners policy for let's say 1million/2 million liability. If you state is like Virginia, you would want "fire legal" coverage, so check the state where you live. The fire legal is an amount that your policy will pay for the portion of the building that you business occupies. This number varies from company to company, and can be as little as 50,000 coverage, or like Erie Insurance which gives you up to the liability limit , which in this case would be 1 million dollars. Your 1 million/2 million liability coverage would pay for the rest of the building if you burnt it down due to your businesses neligence.

I hope this helps.
 
You cannot get insurance on the whole building, just the unit you are leasing. I think that is what you were asking. You are liable for the unit you are in, almost 100% of the time the lease requires you to have a policy.
 
I agree I don't think you can insure the entire building since you do not have ownership in it. I do believe, though that you can get coverage for any improvements or betterments in your particular unit as well as premises liability.
 
You cannot get insurance on the whole building, just the unit you are leasing. I think that is what you were asking. You are liable for the unit you are in, almost 100% of the time the lease requires you to have a policy.

This is true, but the owner of the building can sue you for the remainder of the building, and that will be covered by your "limits of liability".

Betterments and improvements are usually covered, Erie includes these in you contents coverage.
 
Back
Top