Question about property insurance

Hello,

About to rent my first investment property in Hobart and wondering if anyone can help with advice about insurance.

Wondering what insurances I need and if anyone has any recommendations based on experience?

Thanks so much in advance!

 

@Luckycharm @Mark - you both have property in Tassie, mind sharing what sort of insurance is required?

 

Landlord insurance is a must. I would recommend Ebm or Terri Scheer

 

Landlord and building insurance if it is stand alone house!

 

Ebm is generally the most recommended here. They have just a LL product if you have a unit (as body corp will generally cover building) , or combined LL and building if you have a standalone house.

Most will include a certain amount of liability cover (to protect you getting sued) and minor amount of contents (to protect included fittings). Tenants then arrange their own contents cover to handle all their belongings.

 

As already mentioned if your property is strata titled (such as a unit or townhouse) the Body Corporate / Owners Corporation should be responsible for the buildings and common areas, but you will be responsible for your "contents" (such as carpets, curtains, blinds, light fittings etc.). This is generally best done in a landlord insurance policy that will also include your tenant related risks (such as malicious and accidental damage by tenants, loss of rent, legal expenses etc.). The EBM policy for this for example is RentCoverUltra.

If it is a single dwelling such as a house you will also need to insure the building itself, so either add a separate defined risks building policy or get one that incorporates both the tenant related features as well as the building, such as RentCoverPlatinum (you do not need a separate "landlords" policy in this case.

These "types" of products are available from a number of Insurers but just take care as they can vary a lot but not easy to pick. Search this forum and you will see a lot of discussion.

I will leave out recommendations as I am just a little bit biased but happy to answer any insurance related questions as best I can.

 

Thanks @brettc it's on a strata title but the body corporate isn't active/there's no fees. It's just the two houses and the guy who owned both of them and sold one to me lives in the other place.

So do I treat this as a single dwelling as you mentioned above with the RentCoverPlatinum?

 

Thanks @D.T. - As I mentioned in my reply to brettc below, it's on a strata title but the body corporate isn't active/there's no fees. It's just the two houses and the guy who owned both of them and sold one to me lives in the other place.

Is EBM Australia wide? (I'm in Tassie)

 

Thanks @MWI!

 

Yea it is. I'd get the standalone house version then...

 

Brilliant, thanks for your help @D.T.

 

Remember to quote property chat and ya get 2 months free.

 

Ohhh, really? Thanks for the tip

 

It would be best for you to speak to one of our staff to ensure it is done correctly, but in general terms from what you've said it sounds like there would not be an issue in offering Platinum for your dwelling.

If it is two separate buildings with separate driveways etc. but they just happened to have originally been on a single title, that would not be a problem for us.

If there are any common walls we would only cover 50% of them, but if there were any common areas such as driveways we would not cover those areas at all.

So if you would like to private message me your phone number I'm happy to get someone to give you a call to discuss.

 

Thanks - have sent you an email

 

Hi brettc - sorry to rehash an old thread...

You might recall I bought the original house on a block that has recently been subdivided. The previous owner, built a second house on the block and has moved into that. Strata title came through just before settlement. There is no body corp or strata insurance as it's just the other owner and I. We share a common driveway and some fencing that runs up the side of the driveway. On advice in this and other forums, we each purchased separate building insurance, and I also purchased landlord insurance as mine will be a rental for a few years. The advice was to then get separate common areas insurance for liability and any damages to common area. However, we are finding this very difficult as most policies are strata policies that also cover buildings - so we are doubling up. I am still in my cooling off period, so could theoretically change coverage, but I believe he is out of his cooling off period.

Any suggestions on what we should have done and what we still can do?

 

Probably best I get someone to give you a call to discuss, if you could private message me your phone number I will arrange it. Just as a side note, the other owner could cancel their building policy mid-term and receive a pro-rata refund if it turns out that is the best solution.

 

Hi @D.T. - have just been revisiting some old posts, as you can see from my post to brett in this thread today.

In all my reading in this forum, you are one of the regulars who seem to know what they are talking about so just wondering what you might advise in this case?

I have bought one of two properties that officially sit on a strata plan block. The previous owner of both properties only registered them as separate titles at the end of last year on completion of the building of the second home on the block, which he now lives in. So while I think a body corporation just automatically now exists, it's not active - there is no property manager or strata fees or strata insurance fees.

So now it's up to him and I to organise insurance. We've both already purchased building insurance - he's also purchased contents and I've also purchased landlord, as mine will be a rental. However, we were left with a common driveway and a fence that's not currently insured. We were thinking of getting a strata plan with, say, Suncorp or AAMI, that covered liability and damage for the driveway. We've been quoted roughly $150 for this.

But now we're wondering if we actually need to get strata insurance that covers both buildings and the common driveway. My questions are:

1. Which is the better option in this case?
2. Do any strata insurers come recommended over others? The other owner has a quote from Suncorp currently.
3. If we opt for the strata insurance, I assume I still need to get contents insurance for fittings - carpet, curtains etc. (as well as retaining my landlord insurance) - or does landlord insurance cover fittings?
4. Anything I'm overlooking or not understanding with this?

We are in Tasmania, by the way.

 

You don't have to quote property Chat to get 2 months free it. Just comes up on their website for any one.

I just did mine. Didn't quote 2 months free. Was Default.

 

That's not the case, although we do have some other online promos available and you may have got in through there, or some caching occurred from a previous visit. I can assure you the standard sign up will not include 60 days free.