Building and Landlord Insurance & PM

Hi everyone,

I'm in the process of purchasing my 5th property (1 in Europe, 1 in the USA, almost 3 in Oz), and never had a problem with tenants....until now.

One of my Oz properties had a tenant that stopped paying on Jan 2nd. PM was a little slack, and eviction /vacant possession was not complete until March 3rd. When the tenant vacated, they simply walked out, left the front door open. All windows have been smashed, other minor vandalism damage and a massive cleanup. Will cost around $4000 all up. PM called police and filed a report. Naturally, they can't prove if the tenant caused the damage or some other party as the door was left open overnight. The Insurance company response hasn't been as helpful as I would have hoped therefore I would like to ask....

1) Does anyone have any recommendations for insurance companies offering Building and LL insurance to protect my investment in case of any similar situations in the future.

2) Does anyone have experience with and/or can recommend a quality PM in SA (Enfield and northern suburbs)?

Much appreciated in advance!

 

Most of the larger banks will have a form of landlord and tenant insurance and here are some others in no particular order

www.aami.com.au/Landlord-Insurance
www.terrischeer.com.au
www.allianz.com.au/landlord-insurance
www.nrma.com.au/home-insurance/landlord-insurance
www.rentcover.com.au/60DaysFreePromo‎
www.gio.com.au/home-insurance/landlord

Cant help with the PM

 

@D.T. Is that one of your areas?

 

Yup

 

You have a current landlord policy!
covering malicious damage and loss of rent,
Could I sugest you read it, and make a claim?
Insurers are achingly slow.. (Don't ask why I know this)
Get onto them, every 48 hours.
Ask them what they are doing to mitigate your loss?
Tell them what you are doing to mitigate yours.
If they don't do anything, tell them you will make a formal complaint..Keep a written record of all your attempts to contact them, and also who you spoke with, how long you waited on hold( I am speaking from the voice of experience here
Dont give up, and DOnt let them get the better of you!
I do hope this helps

 

I've found EBM to be really fast - they'll approve things very quickly, although they require a mountain of paperwork to be submitted first which is fair enough. They cover 6 weeks for some claims and up to 52 weeks for others, depending on which event.

I can't recommend any specifically though, you need to review them.

 

Thanks for the replies so far. Helpful stuff

 

Sorry to hear about your case of malicious damage
It's always good to get a policy covering both malicious damage as well as accidental damage by tenant (accidental damage is an optional cover by SunCorp)

I've had a malicious damage claim in Qld upwards of $20,000 that has been handled by Suncorp. No problem that Suncorp assessor assessed it as malicious damage and their repairer has done everything agreed upon as malicious damage.

 

Sir Dingo

The claim seems like a standard claim and there is an exact system to get it through. Any of the landlord specialists will handle it. I agree with the above in persisting and challenging.

 

Sir Dingo
Last year we had a siege in a property we manage in Salisbury - northern suburbs. The ex partner of the tenant went into the property with a gun. She ran out with kids no one was hurt, however he had possession of the house for 6 hours with police cars outside.

Every window was smashed, every light globe, all doors were kicked, curtains were pulled off, damage to walls where the curtain rods were pulled off. Garage door was smashed. About $10,000 of damage to house.

The STAR squad eventually went in, they contributed to damage as they broke the front door and screen door to enter. They arrested the crazy guy.

Property was required back to us at 8pm. We had an emergency maintenance team standing by who re- installed a front door, lock, Windows and all glass cleaned up.

The rest of the stuff was cleaned out within the following week.

Tenant left for a week as house was unlivable but was back when we had it fixed.

Total claim was recouped on building insurance - everything. They denied some things, the assessor came in when it was all fixed, we argued that off course it was fixed, we could not leave a property with smashed glass and no front door. They got stuck on the front door claim, some back and fourth emails with our insurance person and they eventually paid up every cent, even the one week vacancy.

Total out of pocket expenses for landlord were ZERO and the whole thing was done in a week. Claim took longer but the actual fixing up was a quick turn around.

As above you need to claim on a combination of building and landlord insurance.

 

Insurance companies always try to get out of things.

Last time I had a bill they wouldn't pay, I just told them I'll pull away over 8 properties from them, and get the Ombudsman onto them.

I got my cheque from them in a week. Dealing with them again this week.