We require all of our tenants to have renters insurance, and our leases clearly stipulate this requirement. This doesn’t just protect the tenant, though, it also protects the landlord.
For tenants, your biggest concern is your personal property. In Georgia, the landlord has absolutely no responsibility for your personal belongings. If the house burns to the ground and you didn’t have renters insurance, then the landlord has no requirement to give you any compensation for your belongings.
They’re just gone. The only thing to protect your own possessions is your own renters insurance. And yes, we have had circumstances where houses caught on fire or main water lines ruptured and all of the tenant’s belongings were ruined. The tenants that had renters insurance were able to get reimbursed for all of it. The ones who didn’t abide by their lease and didn’t have insurance were left with nothing.
But liability is also an issue for a tenant, even more than it is for a landlord. While you occupy the property, all liability for what happens on the property is yours, not the landlord’s, unless the issue was a result of a gross negligence on the part of the landlord. That means that if someone gets injured in the property while you’re renting it, you’re almost certainly the one that is going to be sued, not the landlord. Renters insurance can also protect you in this circumstance.
For property owners, you also have some benefit from us requiring the tenants to have renters insurance. By them having insurance, they’re less likely to have problems paying their rent if something does happen to cause their belongings to be damaged. If they don’t have renters insurance and are paying a lot of money to replace their possessions after an act of god, then they may not have money to pay you, and then you’re dealing with an eviction.
This is just one of the many issues covered by our lease agreement that the generic agreements you receive on the internet or from books won’t cover. To talk to us about property management so you don’t have to worry about such things, give the office a call seven days a week.
