IS EBM the best landlord insurance?

I have used EBM (landlord + building insurance) for a couple of properties for the past 2 years. Never have had to put in a claim.

I tried to renew and it appears they have increased their premium as well due to "inflation". Clearly they are the most expensive out there but that aside, are they good at having a comprehensive insurance and also a hassle-free claim process?

 

Following this

 

From property manager prospective who has been in the industry 15 years . I can say yes. From seeing owners with lesser policies missing out on so much if the unfortunate event or rent default occurs.

I can highly recommend their policies and claims are processed quickly.

Added bonus EBM allow your pm to lodge claim and liaise with them in regards to claim.

 

They don't have multi-policies discount for (Landlord + Building) Platinum insurance.

 

Heres my view having several of my own properties, and managing many who use several different insurers across all of them. Keep in mind I dont have a financial service license (which is needed to recommend insurance), and your circumstances might be different to mine.

I love them.

Its very straight forward what they do and dont cover.

They have a very good level of cover, ie covering things that some other insurances dont. Eg some wont kick in for rent arrears til a few weeks later rather than day 0.

They have a very good level of excess. I've done a few claims where items related to both building and landlord components and both have good excess amounts.

They have a great claims process. In my role I've done a few claims with various insurers. EBM's is the easiest to use. Others have to send out an assessor, or take forever to get back to you, etc. I email EBM their form, along with all the supporting docs (lease, repair invoices, tenant ledger, tribunal notes, etc) and they get back to me very promptly with a list of how much they're covering for each item. They're then open to further discussion from there if needed, which is not often.

This is not advice.

 

Paid 2 EBM Rentcover ultra this week, LL ins only, up 25 bucks each to 305. However states:
Standard Contents Sum Insured for Insured Events and Tenant Damage will increase to $65000.
Pet damage is now included under the Tenant Damage portion of the policy.
Flood Cover.
No depreciation on Malicious Damage claims.
A limit of two excesses on Accidental Damage claims.
Never had to claim so don't know how good it is.

 

All our IPs, my daughter's IPs and my son's IPs are covered by EBM for LL insurance.

We do get a multi-policy discount but our kids don't.

We have made three claims but our kids haven't. Our claims were handed by our PMs and all were fully paid. I am guessing there was no hassles as we were never contacted.

Until they screw me over, I will always recommend EBM.

 

Its a shame that Canstar dont have a LL policy specific review. I would love to see a strict comparison of LL cover of PM, non-PM and short stay.

I know out of all the LL policies few address short stays (Stayz, Holiday lets and Airbnb). EBM have a specific policy as do NRMA / IAG. TerrySheer do but its a special add on not available on the website.

Take care with reading critique of LL policies too. I know so many who bag a specific insurer who also has a specialised policy but many of the comments come from people who buy thinking all events are insured and find out too late that some insurers have a strict requirement of the premises being managed by a PM etc.

So important to know what the policy definitions cover and exclude. Until you do its impossible to compare.

 

From an investor perspective I have used many different companies and policies over the years, including EBM. I have personally found Terri Scheer to the be the best of the lot. EBM were fine, but elements of their policies did not sit well with me, particularly their flood cover at the time.

From a property management agency perspective, Terri Scheer is also excellent and one of the main issues we come across are when claims are made with other providers, they will often look for reason after reason not to pay. Terri Scheer have never done that. EBM is also good from a PM perspective on the claims process and both companies are almost identical in this regard so I wouldn't favour one over the other from a PM perspective.

I would suggest you look at your choice of product from an investor's perspective, not that of a PM. It doesn't matter how easy the claims process is from a technical standpoint, what matters are the details of the policies in the event of a claim and how much resistance you face when you need it the most.

 

I have a claim specialist in my office and we sometimes handle claims for other agencies because property managers are too busy and too inexperienced at getting claims through.

Terri scheer have one of the most generous landlord protection policies on the market.

Ebm apply a depreciation factor to damages whereas TS just pay it out, amongst other things...

In a nut shell, given all things equal, after all the deductions, depreciations, excesses, you will get more money back from Terri scheer than ebm.

 

They've changed this

 

When?

 

It was on the collateral they send out, also had about increasing the damage level, adding pet damage and adding flood cover. Its a superior product now i think. I thought it was before those changes though in my opinion.

 

Was that in the last couple of months or so?
We put in a claim late last year, it was a pain in the butt trying to find out age of the paint job of a wall so that we can claim getting a hole repaired and they need the age to depreciate the paint and discount the claim!!!

Haven't used them since but I'm glad they have changed that.

 

Yeah, start of 2017 I think. Year is going so quickly

 

Sounds like their policy is finally catching up in a few areas

 

Changes were is my post above.
These features are effective for New Business from 1st February 2017 and Renewing Policies with an effective date from 1st April 2017.

 

From what I have been told over the phone, EBM do not cover flood.

Also when I asked them if they cover things such as aircon damage due to electrical surcharge, their answer was "We look into considering them" and even though I tried to get a straight answer, I didnt get one. So basically there is a caveat attached meaning they may or may not process.

The main issue of course is at the time of claim, how comprehensively AND easily they process your claim even if you have to pay a little extra premium. On product review EBM doesnt have as many reviews as Terri does.

Last year when I was doing comparison Terri were slightly cheaper than EBM. From comments above, it appears they are not that different from each other and it may become a case of which one is cheaper right?

 

I did a TS claim a couple of years ago and got $9k out of $12.5k. Everything else was denied as they considered each room to have an excess for each item, eg carpet in each bedroom had an excess, same as each set of curtains etc etc, and did not consider a house trashed end to end to be one event. They did cover lost rent easily enough and no fuss.

 

They do as of earlier this year.