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by phil21 21 days ago
It was required in all my boilerplate leases going back to the late 90s. Just rarely if ever enforced or even asked about.

You’d just end up with some giant uncollectable judgement against you if you ended up burning down the apartment complex via negligence. Landlords insurance company would potentially come after you, but probably not since it would not be worth their time for most tenants.
1 comments
SoftTalker 20 days ago
The liability limits on most renters insurance policies are low $100Ks, because most renters don't have many assets they need to protect. This would be pretty inconsequential in the scenario of "burning down the apartment complex."

Landlords/owners have their own fire and liability insurance (ultimately paid for by the tenants as part of their rent); it's unnecessary to demand that the tenants provide their own. Renter's insurance is for the tenant's protection, not the landlord's.

My leases always point out that the landlord's insurance does not cover the tenant's personal property or liability, and recommend renter's insurance. But it's not required.

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phil21 20 days ago
> My leases always point out that the landlord's insurance does not cover the tenant's personal property or liability, and recommend renter's insurance. But it's not required.

I generally agree, obviously for a "burn the place down" incident the renter's policy is going to be rather inconsequential, and likely not even actionable.

But for more "medium" stuff like "flood the unit below me because I left the bath on and left for work" where the liability is in the low $10k's, that's where I see landlords (and their covering policies) wanting the renter's insurance to kick in and cover.

I personally find it a bit slimey - if you're a landlord this is just part of the risk of being a landlord. If you don't have the capital to cover such incidents, then you should simply not be a landlord. Sorry.

Trying to squeeze an extra few dollars per month out of tenants is ridiculous, but seems to be the way everything is going when you get hyper-financialization and PE type firms buying multiple buildings.

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