How your tenants habits can affect your landlord’s insurance

We all have personal habits. Some are more desirable than others and some are considered not only to be unhealthy but they may also affect your landlord’s insurance policy. Take two minutes to find out how!

Is the professional tenant’s habit, such as smoking or drinking alcohol, a risk factor for the premises?

Not surprisingly, smoking causes a large portion of the fire risk. Lying on the sofa with a cigarette in one hand and not putting it out, can result in a house fire. And those are at the top of the list because they are fairly common. So what a lot of insurance companies are doing is putting a little clause in the insurance policy saying that you must not smoke in your rental agreement, which is becoming more and more common.

If a claim is made it is possible that they did not have that clause and did not begin when they should have, but it simply means that if there is a fire, whether it is a DSS tenant or a professional, and they are having a cigarette or anything else a person might smoke, and the place burns down, you must specify that in your policy.

Which is better, having residential or professional tenants?

Many customers have been advised to try to find a professional tenant, but they did not do so, and then their premiums go up, so they come back the next year and ask, “Why does the premium keep going up?” So the insurer informs them that the previous year, they were advised to try to find a professional tenant to save money. When they do, they realize what they should have done in the previous ten years, because there are good professional tenants. There are also good DSS, but it is only an evaluation structure. They must evaluate them in some way. There are more complaints from DSS tenants than professional tenants in a single day.