Consumption and Real Estate
What are real differences between Dwelling Insurance policy and Home Insurance policy?
Question : What are real differences between Dwelling Insurance policy and Home Insurance policy?
The situation most likely applies to your home that you either completely occupy, or you live in there and rent out one or two bedrooms that are extra that you do not use. If you have tenants in the home that you own and live in should require liability coverage for the tenant residents.
This is a very practical situation that many home owners have as they rent out extra bedroom to single student or professional.
dwelling insurance
Best answer:
Answer by efflandt
Insurance for the owner depends whether the property is owner occupied or not (more expensive if not owner occupied, since you cannot keep as close an eye on things).
If you are concerned about liability of tenants, you should require them to get renter’s insurance (regardless of whether you live there or not).
OK, the situation you’re describing, where you rent out bedrooms, isn’t going to qualify for a dwelling fire policy, either.
But, here are some basic differences:
Homeowners – requires that the deeded property owner live in the house. Typically, there is NO business exposure on the premises (or limited business exposure – like your kid delivers papers). The standard policy has six built in coverages – it’s a package.
Dwelling – property owner does NOT have to live there. Typically, you’d have one family unit renting per living unit. It’s NOT a package deal, it only comes with “building” insurance, but you can add contents, loss of rents, liability, and maybe a few other coverages.
But BOTH applications have a vital question on it – are there any roomers or boarders.
If the homeowner is living there, and renting out two bedrooms to two different people, this is PROBABLY not going to qualify as a homeowners policy, because of the tenants. More than one tenant, is going to be a problem.
Same with dwelling fire, unless you’re insuring a TWO FAMILY house – one tenant per unit.
If you have one tenant, your underwriter might agree to add the endorsement, to cover your liability as landlord, to one tenant. But if, for example, every bedroom has it’s own lock on it (so the tenant can lock the bedroom when they leave against other tenants), and there’s shared common area, this is not a homeowners or a dwelling – it’s a rooming house. You’d need commercial property and general liability for that.