I own my home and I have free room. I am letting me friend stay with me for free well he gets back on his feet. He has renter's insurance and I have have home owner's insurance. Do I need some sort of "landlord policy" to cover any damage to the dwelling that might be his fault? Or, is this covered under my home owner's insurance since I'm not charging him and I live in the house too?
Home Owners Insurance and Renting a Room
- Thread starter JamesHart
- Start date
- 11,997
Nope, you're both in good shape. A landlord policy is for when you have a house you're renting out and you have it instead of a homeowner's policy. It's basically a homeowners policy, but it has much less coverage for personal property and it's going to allow you to rent the house out. If you're just renting a room you don't need anything else and it's responsible of him to have a renters policy.
If he leaves the coffee pot on and the house burns to the ground, you're in good shape. People have roommates all the time.
If he leaves the coffee pot on and the house burns to the ground, you're in good shape. People have roommates all the time.
Josh is correct.
The only thing I would add is that some homeowners policies allow you to endorse for a tenant, which is a good thing to do. It gives you some landlord style liability coverage.
To further Josh's coffee pot fire, this happens from time to time (even if its not the coffee pot, but say smoking in bed). Your homeowners policy can subrogate back to his renters policy to recover the damage, if its caused by your roommates unintentional negligence. Long way of saying make sure he keeps his renters policy in place and you'll understand the rest in the unlikely event you have a claim.
Dan
The only thing I would add is that some homeowners policies allow you to endorse for a tenant, which is a good thing to do. It gives you some landlord style liability coverage.
To further Josh's coffee pot fire, this happens from time to time (even if its not the coffee pot, but say smoking in bed). Your homeowners policy can subrogate back to his renters policy to recover the damage, if its caused by your roommates unintentional negligence. Long way of saying make sure he keeps his renters policy in place and you'll understand the rest in the unlikely event you have a claim.
Dan
- Thread starter
- #4
So wait, He has renter insurance for his personal belongings ($25k) and liability ($100k) the liability isn't for damage done though, it's just if he were to e sued.
So lets say in your example he does leave the coffee pot on and burns down the house, are you saying my home owner's insurance won't cover that? I'll have to sue him? and if that's the case, should he have enough liability to cover my house because it's worth more than $100k...
- 11,997
For what it'd cost, he should have half a million anyway. I think we're talking about a $2-$3/month difference.
But yes, you get the gist of it.
Odds of them wanting to file the claim against his renters is *very* unlikely unless he was *seriously* at fault and they can prove it.
- Thread starter
- #6
Can we define "serious"? ie: the examples used above? Smoking in bed, a coffee pot, or a candle left burning?
- 11,997
A court would have to decide this, but it would be a fairly high threshold beyond an accident.
To use a classic homeowners insurance liability example:
A tree on your neighbors property falls on your house. That's the responsibility of your insurance to cover, no theirs, unless it's a situation where the tree was obviously a hazard, they had been warned about it, and it was gross negligence on their part to not do something about it. That's a *very* hard thing to prove. Leaving a candle burning, smoking in bed, leaving a coffee pot on, those aren't likely to be considered serious enough to amount to them suing him (or otherwise holding him liable) for the damages. If you really want to get an interesting answer, try calling up your insurance carrier and try to talk to an adjuster about it (those are the folks that actually handle claims). Adjusters have really interesting jobs.
Bottom line is have him have $500K in liability and don't worry about it. Odds of anything happening is minimal.
usually, your homeowners will pay and then go after his renters policy (if he is clearly at fault, coffee pot wouldn't work), and collect what they can. The only real difference is whether you get your deductible back or not. If they recover from the renters policy in full, then you would probably get your full deductible back. If they recover about half, then you would get about half.
To be honest, you are almost in the noise level of issues. If your house burns down, you probably have bigger things to worry about than how much his renters policy will reimburse your insurance company at some point in the future. Its good he has one, leave it at that.
Dan
usually, your homeowners will pay and then go after his renters policy (if he is clearly at fault, coffee pot wouldn't work), and collect what they can. The only real difference is whether you get your deductible back or not. If they recover from the renters policy in full, then you would probably get your full deductible back. If they recover about half, then you would get about half.
To be honest, you are almost in the noise level of issues. If your house burns down, you probably have bigger things to worry about than how much his renters policy will reimburse your insurance company at some point in the future. Its good he has one, leave it at that.
Dan
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