9 Tips for Property Managers, Landlords to Reduce Insurance Costs

Property Management Tip Rental Property Insurance Cost Reduction

Property Managers, Landlords and Property Management Companies can save hundreds of dollars insurance costs as the prices for insurance varies depending upon the company.

Consider the following 9 tips when buying real estate property insurance.

1. Shop Around – Check with your apartment association, friends or online quote services. Get quotes and ask the insurers what they would do to lower your costs/

2. Raise Your Deductible – The higher your deductible the more money you save on premiums. If you can afford to raise your deductible to $1000 you may save as much as 25 percent in premiums

3. Don’t confuse what you paid for the real estate property with rebuilding costs – The land under the property is not at risk for theft, windstorm, fire and other perils covered under insurance. Do not include the value of land to determine how much of the property value should be covered.

4. Make your property more disaster resistant – You can steps like adding storm shutters, reinforcing the roof or retrofitting property to withstand earthquake.

5. Improve the property security – Check with your insurer to see what steps you can take to improve the property security and reduce your insurance premiums.

6. Maintain Good Credit – Some insurers check the credit score to determine insurance premiums and so make sure that your credit record is accurate

7. Stay with the same insurer – Long term policy holders receive special discounts but do compare your premiums with prices of policies from other companies at least once a year.

8. Review limits of policy and coverage once a year – Make sure you are not paying for any extra coverage. For example, one company added credit protection coverage in landlord’s policy which may not be needed by all landlords. So do review what you are being charged for once a year.

9. Encourage your tenants to carry tenant insurance also known as renter’s insurance and reduce your headache after a disaster. Read post on renter insurance aka tenant insurance and download brochure.

Check the CLUE (Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange) report of the real estate property you are thinking of buying. These reports contain the insurance claim history of the property and can help you judge some of the problems the house may have.

Remember that flood insurance and earthquake damage are not covered by a policy. If you buy a real estate property in a flood-prone area, you’ll have to pay for a flood insurance policy that costs an average of $400 a year. The Federal Emergency Management Agency provides useful information on flood insurance on its Web site at FloodSmart.gov. A separate earthquake policy is available from most insurance companies. The cost of the coverage will depend on the likelihood of earthquakes in your area. In California the California Earthquake Authority (www.earthquakeauthority.com) provides this coverage.

Download this brochure about steps you can take to reduce your insurance costs by CLICKING HERE

This blog post is brought to you by SimplifyEm Pay Rent Online and Property Management Software

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This entry was posted on Thursday, January 14th, 2010 at 4:00 am and is filed under Real Estate News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.