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.
