Item — HN Reader

In Australia we have very strong consumer protection law, here it’s expected (by the bank usually) the landlord has at least a minimum “landlord insurance” that covers all that stuff.

For anything not covered, where a tenant does damage thats what the bond is for.

Renter insurance should be optional.

Actually I’m surprised that landlord insurance is not already occurring, imagine a building with 100 apartments, I’m sure the bank would ask the landlord to have a single cover over 100’s of little crappy policies.

If renter insurance is required by regulations, this is likley another good target for policy change.

Americans really do get screwed in so many ways.

3 comments

> Americans really do get screwed in so many ways.

Absolutely. I assumed the parent was talking about the US because that's the only place in the world I've encountered this.

If everyone is required to have an insurance - why not bury it in property tax/rates instead?

In NZ we are not required to have third party medical cover because everyone is already covered by yearly car registration fee.

The answer to every question like this in the US is "because the wrong people would benefit".

In the past (and still today but less so), that literally meant black people. Now it mostly means poor people of all races.

It's been shown over and over that it's practically an American cultural value to accept lower benefits to yourself in trade for denying benefits to what you see as an undeserving group.

What about people without cars?

I’m pretty sure EVERYONE is covered under the public system, a levy is added in the car rego fee that is the funding mechanism. You don’t need to be a driver to be covered.

Are you talking about ACC? It levies basically everything, not just cars.

Same here. This has only been a thing recently when landlords figured out they could make money selling the insurance. When I was a renter, insurance was never required from me.

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.

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.

> 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.

Plenty of places have required renters insurance going back the last two decades I've been an adult. My parents were landlords in the hood when I was a kid and they required it (as a lease provision, never enforced).

However, it is landlord and location dependant - it's pretty much the norm in NYC, for example (see https://www.reddit.com/r/AskNYC/comments/11bl350/does_your_a...).