Go by what the lease says.
If the landlord didn’t make it a term of the lease, just ignore the email.

If you don’t care about your personal property ot having insurance, then you don’t need it. Not your problem.

Seems to me that what your landlord is trying to do is move his insurance costs from his policy to you. I don’t know if this is the best way to go about it, but you might get quotes for the cost of insurance, and then inform your landlord you’ll be glad to purchase the insurance if he’ll lower your rent by that amount. Thus moving the insurance cost back to him. As I said, I’m not sure this is the best way to go, but it’s certainly one possible negotiation strategy.

He sounds like a slum lord in the making to me, if not already.He may be passing on to you what the insurance is trying to pass on to him by not insuring personal property. Definitely find out who he is insured with and go from there.Could be just his brash way of saying your personal belongings are not covered under his insurance,which is normal.

Ok, I didn’t want to chime in until I had some facts. I asked my good insurance agent that is also a good friend of mine and he offered the following explanation.

There are two different terms on an insurance policy: “additional insured” versus “interested party”

When you list someone on your policy as “interested party”: that person(s) will be notified if there is any changes to your insurance policy, but your policy does not extend any coverage to him.

When you list someone on your policy as “additional insured”, you are extending whatever liability coverage to that person(s)…..

The landlord is probably doing this because he/she probably was in a situation in which a tenant did something, and both the tenant and himself ended up getting sued. So he’s probably trying to get on people’s renter insurance “additional insured” to mitigate this. For example, my agent was explaining to me that he had a client in which his tenant poured cat litter down a toilet from the upstairs. Both the tenant and the landlord were named in the lawsuit.

My agent actually says for individual renter’s insurance, most underwriters will NOT allow the policy holder to list anyone else as “additionally insured”, so it’s a moot point. And frankly, if the landlord asked me to do this, I’d give him the finger salute.

What the landlord might require you to do is to list him as “interested party” so that he knows, for example ,if you drop renter’s insurance coverage. I think that would probably be fair game.

Apparently, this sort of question gets asked a lot, so he’s not surprised it came up on this forum. But, again, according to him, most underwriters won’t allow you to add a landlord as “additional insured”.

BTW: if you’re in the market for renter’s insurance and want someone to talk to, I can give you my agent’s contact information. He’s a nice guy, and I’ve known him for about 15+years. Just PM me.

Also, FWIW, on all my leases, I specifically say that tenants are required to obtain renter’s insurance. But I don’t get into details of how much, nor do I require that I’m listed as an interested party.

[quote=Balboa]Thanks everyone, and special thanks to Flu for making the call I don’t have time for! I confirms my sense of where things *should* stand.

I think I’ll get the renter’s insurance, but I am not doing the “additional insured” bit, even if I were to go with a carrier that offered it. If landlord insists, he’ll have to pony up the documents that show my non-compliance would violate my lease, i.e. raise his rates or cause him to lose coverage.

My lease also gives me the option of covering the cost of his higher premium, if there is one, instead of insuring myself. If that’s cost effective for the renter, I would be blown away.

The other thing that’s curious is whether he actually has this new carrier yet or not — if it’s the carrier that is requiring insurance and additional insured status, wouldn’t they require proof before the policy took effect?

For a law office, the language is terribly imprecise. For example, I’m pretty sure you can’t “renew” a policy with a new carrier. They could be using “additional insured” incorrectly, too.

Thanks as always! (Maybe this will be my last rental…)[/quote]

In every one of my condo’s insurance policy, there was never a requirement on my policy to require the renter has renter’s insurance before I could get insurance for my condo. As it was explained to me, two completely different policies for two different purposes. The condo policy covers the landlord’s dwelling plus his liability. The renter’s insurance cover’s the tenant’s personal belongings plus his/her liability.

In all likelihood, his insurance went up, and he probably is using this as an excuse for you to pay more for the cost of his insurance, and wants to create a pain in the ass situation so rather than you go out and get your own renter’s insurance, you just pay the additional cost he wants you to pay for his insurance…. If it was for me, I wouldn’t do it. I’d just go get my own renter’s insurance. I doubt whatever his insurance is will cover the cost of your personal belongs or cover your liability if something happens. If you’re going to be paying for insurance, you might as well spend money for insurance that benefits you, not him.

Great info in that link, thanks!