Owning and renting real estate can prove to be one of the best decisions you make in your financial life. Yet, in order to protect your investment, you have to have proper insurance in place. Many more people are renting than used to, and each one needs a quality place to call their own. While the number of rental units grows, it is the responsibility of the investor and landlord to do what they can to minimize the risk of financial loss. One component of that is having landlord insurance coverage in place.
Consider the risks to your investment. A storm could lead to a lightning strike that causes a fire. That could damage your property considerably, and the repairs would have to come from your pocket. What if someone vandalizes your property? There is no way to prevent all types of risks from occurring, but there are steps you can take to ensure your financial integrity.
What is landlord insurance?
Landlord insurance provides financial protection for rental property owners. It covers the financial losses you suffer as a result of covered incidents. When a tragedy strikes, you want to know your property is going to be repaired or replaced for you.
Keep in mind that most insurance companies require you to alert them if you are renting the property owner. This may change your coverage needs as well as your costs.
A landlord insurance policy is often the best choice. It provides ample coverage for many of the risks you are most likely to face. Furnished Finder partners with Steadily to offer reputable landlord insurance for your mid-term rental property. Start your free quote process now right within your Furnished Finder Landlord Dashboard (opens in new tab) or click here (opens in new tab) (you will be prompted to log in to access the quote function).
For more information on coverage, continue reading.
Coverage in a landlord insurance policy
Insurance companies vary significantly. Many of the following coverages are a part of landlord policies. There are three main components of these policies. Within each type are several ways the policy can help you.
1. Dwelling coverage
This component of landlord insurance typically covers the physical damage to the property. Some coverages include:
Fire Damage: If your property suffers fire damage that you did not cause, the policy may apply. In this situation, it may cover the damage to the structure so you can make repairs or rebuild it in some situations. It also covers your contents – the items you own that are within the structure.
Water Damage: Many types of water damage may be covered under your policy. That includes the water heater breaking or the pipes freezing in the middle of the winter. It may not cover all types of flooding, though. You’ll need flood insurance in some areas to minimize this risk.
Windstorm, Hail, and Lightning: Most of the time, landlord insurance covers damage brought on by storms. That includes falling tree branches that damage the roof of the home. It may cover damage to windows and the roof from hail strikes. If lightning hits your home, causing damage or a fire, this component of property damage will help you recover by paying for those losses.
Riot and Civil Commotion: Your landlord insurance may also cover the cost of repairing the damage that is brought on by rioting and civil commotion. Be sure that you verify that this is a part of your policy if it is a valued feature to you. Policies vary in terms of what they will and will not cover under this.
Vandalism: Should someone cause damage to the property as an act of vandalism, your landlord insurance policy may be able to help. This could include repairing broken windows, cleaning off graffiti, or handling other types of damage caused by vandalism. Keep in mind that this applies to vandalism done by a person that does not live within the home.
Burglary: Should a person break into your home or otherwise steal your personal property, your insurance policy may help to cover those losses. This includes damage to the property – such as a broken door or window to get in – as well as the loss of your belongings. Your policy may offer actual value coverage or replacement cost (depending on what you select). Be sure to know that your landlord policy covers the loss of your belongings, but not the loss of those of your renter. They can purchase a separate renter’s policy to cover their losses.
2. Landlord liability insurance
Another component of your landlord policy covers liability risks. Liability occurs when someone files a claim against you because of an accident or incident that occurred while on your property and believes you are responsible for making it right. Legal liability (opens in new tab) is a critical component of your property. In some situations, your renters, a person walking by the home, or even a visitor on the property may be hurt while there. If they fall and hit their head, they could be facing thousands of dollars in loss. You could be responsible for those costs if they show that the property was unsafe and caused that accident to occur.
Liability insurance helps you in several ways. It may help to pay for the individual’s losses. It may also help you in a court of law, helping to provide you with an attorney who can defend your case. If a settlement or a judgment occurs, the insurance company pays that up to the maximum coverage of the policy.
Umbrella Coverage: Umbrella coverage is a type of liability insurance that goes up and over the amount of liability policies. Today, lawsuits often lead to a significant amount of loss. A basic liability insurance policy may not be enough. This type of policy adds another layer of protection for you in this situation. It could help cover more of the medical losses a person has as well as the settlement or judgment against you.
3. Loss of income insurance
The third type of coverage provided by landlord insurance is loss of rent or loss of income, which is applicable as part of a covered claim. When something significant occurs to the property that makes it unable to be rented out at least for a period of time, this component of the insurance policy works to help you. It can help to cover a portion of the rental income you were getting prior to the incident, allowing you to meet your financial obligations while you cannot rent out the property.
Additional types of landlord insurance
There are other components that may be applied to your landlord insurance. If these situations apply to you, be sure to speak to your real estate agent about your needs for this type of custom coverage.
Mid-term rental insurance: If you are planning to rent your property out for mid-term rentals, it is critical to have a policy that defines that specific type of use. Like many other rental property types, mid-term rentals are a higher risk to insurance companies than a typical renter who is more likely to care about the property itself. Your insurer wants to be sure that they fully understand the risks associated with the property, so they can be sure you have enough coverage for those risks.
What does landlord insurance not cover?
When it comes to selecting the right type of insurance for your needs, you need to know what is covered and what these policies do not cover. The only way to know that for sure is to read the terms and conditions of the policy you are selecting. This can vary from one policy and one insurer to the next.
Some of the most important exclusions to landlord insurance include the following:
The tenant’s property – most policies do not cover the tenant’s property, and many landlords require or encourage renters to obtain their own policy for these items.
The tenant’s car – the same applies here, as the tenant should seek out their own coverage
Landlord insurance does not cover repairs to major systems
It does not cover damage caused by the property owner, such as if a property owner causes damage to the rental itself
It does not cover anything that stops working due to normal wear and tear or a lack of maintenance
How much can you expect to pay for landlord insurance?
The only way to know what you can expect to pay for landlord coverage is to request a formal quote. Your location, the type of property the risks present, and more factors all play a role in the costs. Landlord insurance is typically based on risks present, as well as the value of replacing your policy or the amount of coverage you want to purchase, in the case of liability protection. A general rule of thumb is that landlord insurance costs 20-25% more than traditional homeowners insurance (opens in new tab).
Get a quote with Steadily in minutes to determine what the best level of insurance coverage is for your needs. Start your free quote process now right within your Furnished Finder Landlord Dashboard (opens in new tab) or click here (opens in new tab) (you will be prompted to log in to access the quote function).
Learn more about Steadily in Furnished Finder's podcast episode (opens in new tab) with Darren Nix, Founder & CEO of Steadily and what makes Steadily the best choice for furnished rentals.
Episode 122 Transcript
Welcome to the Landlord Diaries, where we talk about midterm rentals and the opportunities behind them. We'll share landlord stories, talk about maximizing investment potential, and discuss how to live the very best landlord life. This podcast is proudly brought to you by Furnished Finder, the leader and largest online marketplace for midterm rentals.
Remember to like and subscribe if you enjoy our content. It's your host team of the Landlord Diaries podcast, Kelly Bailey and Katie Lyon coming to you from the Furnished Frontier Marketing team as midterm rental investors ourselves. Today we have our next subject matter expert episode with our partnership with Steadily Insurance.
We're talking with the founder, Darren Nix. Katie, what were your big takeaways from today's episode? You guys, this is all about our new partnership with Steadily Landlord Insurance. And if you don't have a landlord policy on your investment property, You have to do that right now like yesterday and we've made it really really simple at furnished finder.
We Want you to be able to have all the tools in your landlord toolbox so you can be super duper successful With all things midterm rental, so we've partnered up with steadily because they are such an industry leader We have so much trust in them and we know That the products that they provide are like top notch.
So you can get a quote for your property for a new landlord policy, right within your landlord dashboard on furnishminder. It's super, super easy. You just go to your landlord tools and it says property insurance right there. It's like, Six or seven clicks of a button. I don't know and you get a quote So this is something that like you have to have like you gotta have all your eyes dotted All your t's crossed and this is like the best way to do it when it comes to insurance So I want everybody to listen to this episode and learn why this is really important and what you are protecting yourself from and why this is different than a normal homeowner's policy.
And then your step two is go on and get that quote. It's free. It doesn't, uh, obligate you to anything. And it's free. Super easy, but like you've got to give yourself the power of knowledge when it comes to insurance and making sure that you do have all the protection you need. So this is a great one, um, just to make sure that like all of your, all your business, all your insurance ducks, they're all in a nice little row.
Today we will discuss our Furnished Finder partnership with Steadily Insurance Company, one of the best rated landlord insurance services in America. Meet founder and CEO Darren Nix, who will educate us on all things insurance with a specific Emphasis on the need for midterm landlord insurance and why Furnished Finder has partnered with Steadily as a leader in the furnished rental space.
Steadily has been featured on CBS News, NBC, and more with an excellent rating on TrustPilot. Thank you so much for being with us here today, Darren, uh, founder of the company. How are you? I'm delighted to be here today and to talk about all things insurance as we'll talk about it. It's great to think that.
I've gotten right a few times in my career and also wrong quite a few times as a, as a property investor myself. Hmm. I like that. We'll have to make sure and save that one for a question later. Uh, so let's start off with what is the steadily story? There has been a gap in the midterm rental insurance market that you guys have found a solution for.
So why has steadily, uh, chosen to be a leader in the, in this landlord insurance space? Well, it's kind of a, Personal story, I bought my first rental property in Chicago back in 2018, and I had been listening to podcasts like this, which was the original inspiration, and I thought that things would be fairly straightforward being that it was.
You know, it's in the late mid 2000s and I thought that I could just go online, get an easy quote and it would be affordable and things would be easy, but my experience was the exact opposite. It took about a week for me to get a quote for the property and the quote was three times what I was paying for my home.
That was worth about the same. And that was the beginning of my journey of trying to find a faster, better, cheaper way of insuring rental properties. I love that. That's, uh, there's no better way to get started than, you know, seeing a need, being able to meet that need in your own life, and then expand it, uh, to others that are experiencing the same thing.
So, that's how Furnished Finder got started. Was founded is our founder, saw that need, uh, and expanded it to what it is now. We have 300,000 properties nationwide, so we're looking forward to partnering with. Uh, since our midterm rental hosts need to know about, you know, the benefits of your landlord insurance program.
So, uh, why is steadily a leader in this space? Here in Simple, the gap that we saw was that very few people were building insurance programs for rental property investors. What most people were doing was trying to take a homeowner's policy and then get it endorsed to serve as a rental property. And that generates a host of problems.
One, it often costs way too much, which was my experience. Two, homeowners insurance companies, generally speaking, are quite reluctant to insure a property that's in any way out of the ordinary. Is it being renovated, short term rental, mid term rental, abnormal use cases. Just this host of reasons for knockouts, and as a result, many rental property investors, including myself, have a really hard time getting coverage.
And so when we were building steadily, it was coming at it from the perspective of, we're building a product only for landlords. There's no whole layers in the mix. We're thinking from the ground up, we as rental property investors ourselves, what do we need in coverage, and how can we give that coverage affordably?
And so when someone comes to us and says, Hey, I have tenants that are going to be in the property for two to three months, and then I might have a gap of three weeks, and then I'm going to fill in some of that gap with some Airbnb, and then it's going to go back to a long term rental, and then I'm going to take the property off the market, uh, and have it renovated and upgraded, or like, yeah, okay, we've seen that ten times before, like, here's what you need, like, we got you.
And if you had that same conversation with a homeowner's insurance company, it just doesn't work. It is really nice to work within platforms and businesses that are made to help you do specifically what you're trying to do. Um, that's another reason, like at Furnished Vendor, we do midterm rentals and only midterm rentals, right?
We're not trying to do anything else. Everything we're not trying to do short term and midterm and long term and you know, on and on and on. It's like we know what we're really good at and we're here to solve that problem for our users. So I really like the fact that you guys have have really dug into that niche and helped out those landlords because having the right coverage is crucial.
Um, and I want to jump right into that because As soon as we start talking about insurance, the questions that Kelly and I always get are, how do I know what I need? And why do I need something different? Or, you know, it just leads to like an instant level of confusion. And I think that it's something that it doesn't have to be.
So let's start simple. And when we talk about the type of landlord coverage that someone might have as a long term rental, um, a long term rental property or investor, why is that? Not good enough coverage for the midterm rental space. Generally speaking, somewhere buried within the policy documents, because keep in mind you're talking about 30 pages of documents, which no one reads, unfortunately.
There's going to be terms that the insurance company sets that says, this is what we think is going to happen with most of the people that buy this policy, and anything outside of that, it's not covered. And when companies were writing those documents back in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, concepts like short and determinantals literally did not exist.
So the policy documents, if you actually went and read them, would say something like, If your policy is vacant, if your property is vacant for 30 days and you suffer vandalism to the property, you're not covered. And that language is in all insurance policy documents. And the same thing will apply to short term and mid term rentals where very often the standard policy documents will not cover for damage that occurs while someone other than the policyholder is in the property.
And so the core idea behind having a midterm or a short term focused policy is that it's built to this and it says, yes, we expect that you're going to have guests that aren't you in the property and that they're coming in and out over time and you're covered because ultimately the whole purpose of insurance is to protect for that rainy day when something really bad, catastrophic and expensive happens and you can get covered.
And get back to, uh, renting out your property and in short order. I think that's very well said. Let's, let's get real for a minute. Do you, can you think of any example stories like impactful midterm rental or, uh, furnished rental coverage stories you can share from one of your steadily users? It happens all the time.
So on almost every day. We will get a claim from someone who has a property because at Steadalee, 20 percent of our properties are other than long term. So 80 percent of our business is long term and 20 percent is short or mid term. And so across the hundreds of thousands of policies that we write, you can imagine that we see just about everything.
And so, uh, it's quite common for us to get a claim where someone will say, Hey. I had this property, it was being managed by a property manager, it's in another state, and I just got a report from the property manager that they went out to clean it after this tenant, and, uh, the building has been ransacked.
A lot of the furniture is destroyed, and windows are broken, and we think it looks like 15, 000 to 20, 000 of damage. And so then we look up the property and we're like, yeah, you're, you're covered for this. And so we send out an adjuster. They quickly assess the damage. These days, in many cases, it's a matter of taking out an app on their phone.
They walk through the room and they take photos, kind of in a circle, that builds a 3D model of the room. We digitally assess all the damages and then say, okay, here is your claim settlement. Um, our average time to get a claim paid when it's a digital estimate is about four and a half days. Awesome. Now, 20 percent of your clients are furnished rental type operators.
Uh, I do want to make sure and emphasize in this moment, That midterm rental hosts, what's really nice about the, the guest for a midterm rental is that is rare to hear that a place has been ransacked, uh, which is nice. It does happen. And that's why it's very important to have that coverage in place, uh, that you need, such as our partnership with Steadily Landlord Insurance, but.
The nice thing about midterm rental guests is they're corporate travelers. They're relocating families. They're not just showing up to have a party or a vacation weekend. They're there to live their life and just allow you to, to provide and take care of what they need as a guest. So it's very rare to ever hear of evictions or, uh, you know, even Katie and I can both speak, uh, to ourselves of giving full deposits back pretty much 99 percent of the time.
Uh, so just wanted to make sure and add that in real fast. Um, Katie, anything to add at this point? Um, no, I don't think so. I just, I think this is a good place to Um, distinguish the differences between the different types of protection options. There are within midterm rentals because this is this is again is 1 of those common common questions we get, especially when we talk about.
And then we're talking about steadily landlord insurance. Um, and you might talk about renters insurance. So, um, Darren, why don't I give you kind of my like high level the way I think about it and then you could probably elaborate on it. And or fix my thinking because I am not an insurance professional.
Um, so you probably have a better way to put it, but in my head, it's like the worry free waiver that we offer is an alternative to a security deposit. It is not insurance. Don't think about it as insurance. It is something you can use instead. Instead of having a security deposit, if something gets damaged that you would normally charge a tenant with their deposit, that's what it's for, right?
A torn rug, a damaged couch, a broken window, something like that. Renters insurance, to my understanding, is a policy that covers the renter's insurance. Possessions, right? Um, and then your landlord insurance is really like you, you have to have this, like you have to have this. This would be like you having your own home and not having homeowners insurance.
Like, this is your protection for the actual property. Is there a hailstorm that ruins, um, the roof? Is there a fire? Is there a flood? Is there severe liability that you come into terms with? Like, Any of these things that like, you're like, this is your protection, but the landlord insurance is going to cover you from the liability aspect and from knowing that you're using your property as a rental, right?
So it's not going to get thrown out if you call up your homeowner's insurance to make a claim and all of a sudden they find out you're using it as a rental and they're like, Oh, well, sorry. You know, we're not going to cover the damage from the hail storm then. So if you could give us another version, this is, this is quite literally, I think the most common question that I've answered in the past two or three weeks is like these three columns.
We've got worry free waiver or security deposits, renter's insurance, and landlord insurance. That's exactly right. So landlord insurance versus renter's insurance is really easy to distinguish. Renter's insurance is when somebody stole your tenant's bike. Landlord insurance is for when the property burned down.
So the typical claim for a renter's insurance will be a tenant's in the property, And something gets stolen or the sink overflowed and their clothes got damaged. You're talking about claims in the hundreds of dollars, sometimes maybe a few thousand, but like small claims. And that's reflected in how cheap renter's insurance policies are.
Landlord insurance and homeowner's insurance, they're there for catastrophic events. We're talking literally hundreds of thousands of dollars. So we've written, uh, we've paid a claims that are over a million dollars. Because that is for. Um, flip and pull traumatic injury on a trampoline or in a pool, fires, ale storms, a pipe burst in the second floor, and you have to replace all the drywall and built like really expensive claims where if you didn't have an insurance policy and you own a 200, 000 or property, that's it.
Like the property's toast. And so, yes, you're right. In many cases, it's mandatory. Like if you have a mortgage, they're going to require you to have a policy that is, uh, Okay. As a high enough limit to pay to repair the building, then even if you don't, most people couldn't afford to take a 200, 000 hit if the property burned down, so they also buy insurance.
I think something like 96 percent of people carry insurance on their, on their property. And how does umbrella policies apply into this conversation? Umbrella policies basically raise your limits above whatever your base policy will cover. So it's very typical when somebody buys a landlord insurance policy to buy something like 500, 000 to a million of liability average.
And then an umbrella policy is kind of a casual policy that will often have limits that go from a million up to 2 million. So it's this Superseeding thing to raise your, raise your coverage and typically as folks get into bigger property portfolios, they start to worry more about, Oh, I, I start to become a big target because I have a big asset portfolio.
And so they want an even greater level of coverage to protect them against those really catastrophic big, big incidents. And it's umbrella insurance, something that you can also get through steadily. It is. We do that for a lot of our clients that own more than five properties. Umbrella insurance is one of my favorite things because it is so inexpensive and it just, at least for me, and this could be totally false.
You'll have to, you'll have to confirm it or deny this for me. It's just like a security blanket. I feel like I have that extra layer of coverage. Um, we had our cleaner, Um, got injured on the outside of 1 of our properties. I didn't have that. We weren't liable at all because it was fell onto the, but the 1st call that I made found out it was covered under umbrella insurance.
And I was like, great. Like, um, so I would highly recommend. That even though like I said, I am not an insurance pro, but it's very low cost and it does it's just like this added Like I feel like it's like a stuffed animal to a little kid Like it just gives you that little bit of comfort when you need it.
Yeah, and it's important to understand why it's cheap Because you're talking about in many cases, the umbrella policy, they're liable for a million dollar payout. So you're getting a lot of coverage, but the reason why it's quite inexpensive is that it kicks in as the second layer of protection on top of whatever your primary policy is.
So somebody won't sell you a homeowner's insurance, somebody won't sell you an umbrella policy unless they can verify that you already have a primary policy, which would be landlord insurance on the property. And then they say, okay, you've got a base layer that's going to pay out first. And then you want protection of up and beyond that.
Okay. That's not going to happen all that often. So we can afford to charge relatively little for it because while the severity will be high, the frequency is quick. And I absolutely recommend umbrella policies as well to folks. And I carry one. Myself, because I have several different properties and I want to have that additional layer of production.
Today's episode is proudly sponsored by Furnished Finder, the ultimate platform for hassle free midterm rentals. Whether you're a seasoned landlord or just getting started, Furnished Finder has everything you need to find your next tenant with Furnished Finder. You can say goodbye to booking fees, markups, and commissions.
And hello to direct bookings. If you're ready to experience all the benefits, renting your property for 30 days or more, head over to furnishedfinder. com where you can list your property for one low annual price. We make it easy to get started.
Well, let's continue the conversation about Steadley's midterm rental landlord. insurance we're offering through Furnished Finder. Uh, what, let's go through like what's covered and what's excluded. So that everyone's kind of clear on like those big ticket items of, you know, why they would, why they should add this insurance, uh, over their homeowner's insurance.
So, the main reason why folks should switch from a homeowner's insurance policy to a landlord insurance policy is because the landlord insurance policy is specifically built for landlords. And what that means is that it's often going to be cheaper. And so what a landlord will often do, or a rental property investor is they'll take a look at their coverages and say.
I have a house in Arizona that's worth 400, 000. So all right, you need 400, 000 worth of coverage. That's easy to compare apples to apples between the two. And then you start taking a look at the value of the contents within the property. You say, well, I have furnishings and other things that are worth 40, 000.
So that's about 10%. And you start doing this compare and contrast. And ultimately, what people are looking for is to make their properties cash flow and these days insurance is a very significant part of their, the expense side of their budget. So, being able to find a policy that gives them comfort that all of the things that might happen to the property are covered.
And that it's at an affordable rate. That's really what it comes down to. And so by buying a policy that is built for midterm rentals, folks can have comfort that when something does inevitably happen at some point in the future, they're going to know that it's covered. And over that time period, they've been paying an affordable rate.
Love it. Uh, thanks for explaining that and any exclusions to be aware of? There are exclusions, so for example, one of them is the one that actually caught me out on one of my own properties, so this is kind of embarrassing to admit, but I had a rental property that I decided to sell because it appreciated nicely and I decided to sell it.
So, I put the property on the market, and didn't really think about it too much, and then it was, I priced it too high, so it wasn't selling quickly, gotten a few tours, and then I got a text from one of the, the buyer's agents, and he said, Hey, I think somebody's living in one of your, in one of your units.
This is like a three story walk. And I was like, what are you talking about? It's been, like, I had it photographed, it's definitely vacant. And so I booked a flight up to the city and went and toured the property, and sure enough, somebody had broken in and was living on the second floor, and they'd done a ton of damage, and at this point, the property had been vacant for 90 days.
And so I called up, uh, I called up my insurance agent and said, Hey, like this thing happened and he's like, you have a 30 day limit on your policy of vacancy and your property been vacant for 90 days. Like it, it's not going to cover vandalism. And I was like, Oh man. So the, and this is me, right? Like, I run an insurance company and I got cut out by it.
And so the best advice that I can give someone is you don't need to be obsessing about of insurance on an ongoing basis. When you need to think about of insurance is when something changes. So if you decide to move from long term rentals to midterm, go look for insurance. And then hopefully with steadily, and then ask the question like, Hey, is my policy going to cover damage that occurs.
When I have a midterm rental on the property, they'll confirm and once they've confirmed, you're like, okay, I'm good. And then as long as your situation doesn't change, you can just continue doing that for five years and you never need to think about your insurance. But if something changes in your situation where you're like, Hey, I'm gonna, I'm gonna renovate this property.
Well, now you need to, I don't expect you to know that you need a different type of coverage. Just remember that your situation changed, they're just, and then your agent is going to say, they're going to start asking a bunch of questions like, okay, are they opening up to the studs? Is this just like a paint and they'll start asking some questions and then not to get too technical, but that's going to determine whether you end up with a builder's risk in one marine or these other bunch of types of policies.
But the point is, uh, the rule to remember is when your situation changes, ask your agent, am I covered? And whatever they recommend is, is relatively binding. And you can trust their recommendation. I think this is also another inherent advantage that you have when you're working with someone like Steadily, which is why we've chosen them as our landlord insurance partner is because if you call up your normal insurance broker and you ask for this landlord insurance product and you explain that you do midterm rentals and you do this and that, you're going to get a lot of questions.
And you're going to be explaining a lot about what you do. And in the back of your mind, you might be thinking, I really hope they understand what I'm doing. So this coverage is right. And I know I've been there. I've been on the phone doing that with um, an insurance broker before just being like, okay, I hope they understand that I'm not.
Having overnight stays. I don't have two to three nights days, but I don't have anybody there for a year. Like I hope they grasp this concept. So if something happens, I am in fact covered the way I want to be covered. When you reach out to steadily, that precedent's already there, right? And that's why we've, one of the many reasons that we've selected them is they know exactly what we're doing with midterm rentals.
They know the value, they know the risk, they know our challenges, they know our advantages. So when you're going through the customer service process and the coding process with steadily, and you say, I'm a midterm rental landlord. It's not going to lead to a 20 minute conversation where you're worried that they don't understand fully and your coverage might not be our coverage.
It's just going to be like, okay, great. Tell me about your property, right? It's very clear, and that's what you want, because as Darren is saying, like, you don't want to think about insurance all the time. You want to think about it when you're setting it up, and if and when something changes. Otherwise, it's like you just want to know that It's there, it's set up, it's ready to go to work for you, and if, like, let's hope you never need it, but if you need it, it will protect you in all of the ways that you have expected it to protect you.
That's right. You used the phrase before, the security blanket, that's what it's intended to be. Uh, I think this is a good point, a good point to talk about the structure of how Steadily is set up to be able to give insurance to the most number of people possible. So the first tier is Steadily Insurance Company.
Classic insurance carrier, the policy said steadily insurance company on it. The next one is steadily insurance agency, and that is where we have relationships with dozens of other insurance companies where when somebody comes to us with a property where we can't insure it because of where it's located, we just go to one of the other carriers that we work with a lot and say, Hey, we've got this property.
Um, what's the best price you can give on it? And that approach of having both under one roof allows us to ensure that we can get the maximum number of people coverage.
Hey landlords, are you ready to level up your rental game and simplify your midterm rental business? Well, get ready to meet your new best friend, HeCheck. KeyCheck is your all in one solution for stress free property management. With tenant paid screenings, online rent payment processing, custom lease creation, and a suite of incredible landlord tools, you'll wonder how you ever lived without it.
No more chasing down checks or sifting through piles of applications. KeyCheck helps you organize and manage all things landlording in a simple and efficient way. Make landlord life a breeze with KeyCheck. The game changer for modern property owners, visit key check. com to unlock the power of stress free property management and take your rental business to new heights.
Darren, that is very well said. I think we all know now why we need landlord insurance and, uh, why steadily is Furnished Finder's, uh, partner. So let's jump into what that means. The Furnished Finder steadily process looks like, and guys, we've made this easy for you. It's, it's fast. It's easy. It's free. So from within your Furnished Finder dashboard, uh, as a landlord, you go to the landlord tools and towards the bottom, there's one that says property insurance.
So click on that and it starts you through the quote. And what's really nice is it's very straightforward, a great process. But if for some reason you have a question, Steadily's got their phone number, there's a chat available. So we've made it really straightforward for you guys, as you can tell from talking with Darren, he wants to make things simple and convenient and just provide that coverage we need.
Uh, so let's continue to talk about kind of that process a little bit and, uh, some of the things that apply there. So can you, can your plan coverage be changed at any time? And what would that process look like? It's very straightforward. Once you have a policy, you can log into the website. There's not even a password.
You just type in your email. It'll send you a one time use code, so you don't have to remember your password. Go in and request a change to coverage and you're done. And as you mentioned, if you want to chat with a human, you can web chat, give us a call, um, very wide hours of operation. We understand that many, uh, property investors have full time day jobs and they're doing this on nights and weekends.
And so we make our sales available to help folks out. The, you mentioned the quoting process is super fast. That's a thing we take incredible pride in. So I'm a pretty quick typist and I've gotten a quote in 60 seconds. The average is, the average is more like four minutes, but it can be done in a minute if you Already know your address and everything else.
It's it's a very short quote. Well, it's literally like you don't even have to leave your Furnishmender dashboard to get a quote. It's all in there. It's free. And the people at steadily, like you guys have made such a great company and such a great team because I've gone through and done a quote before for a property that we were looking to acquire to add to our portfolio.
And then, you know, someone followed up with me and I let them know like, Hey, like we haven't closed on this yet. I'm not sure if we're going to. And I didn't get pestered every other day. And my phone didn't start ringing from all these numbers. I didn't know. And I, my inbox wasn't blowing up. Like, I don't know.
It was very much, it felt like a respectful and like a really like, Hey, we're here. If you need us type of relationship, but it's, it's so fast, it's free. And. You need to be as, as a responsible investor and a real estate investor. Like you need to, you need to know that you have the best coverage protecting your investment and your assets.
And also that you have the best price on it, you guys. So like there's no harm in getting a quote, hop on in your dashboard, get a quote. It takes literally 60 seconds. Like it's so fast, so simple. And, You can only go up from there, right? Like there's, there's, there's literally no downside to doing it. It's just more information that can help you make.
Really good decisions. Um, and I also want to remind everybody, because I think this is a something that a lot of people don't realize is if you have a current policy on your property, more often than not, and that you'll have to, uh, help me fill in the blanks here, Darren, but you can cancel a policy and get refunded your unused time for it.
And then start your landlord insurance right away. You don't have to wait until your policy expires. That's, that's. Law, right? Like if you were to decide to change insurance carriers, like they do have to like give you a prorated refund. Is that correct? 90 percent of the time. Yes. And your agent would be able to tell you very quickly if you're not in that 90%, but for the overwhelming majority of people, you have a policy with a carrier.
You let them know that you want to switch to a different policy and they will send you a check for the refund of the prorated difference. So they just take up the number of days that you have left in your contract. Divide that by 365 and, and you're on your way. So it happens all the time. Because if you think about it, imagine if you sold the property and you didn't happen to sell it on the exact day that your policy ended, well, you'd call up the company and say, Hey, I sold this property and they would send you a refund.
It's no different than that. Yeah. Just instead of selling the property, you're just switching to a different, typically cheaper policy. That sounds great. So as far as our Furnished Finder landlords go, we have a variety of user types. We have property owners, of course, which is a majority of what we're talking about here today.
But then we also have, you know, um, the room rental type hosts. We've got, um, multifamilies where they, you know, they're renting all their units within that multifamily as a midterm rental. So does the, does the process change at all there? Uh, is it the same? And then of course, you know, if you don't own the property and you're just an arbitrage or a co host or a property manager, is there anything you need to be doing to cover yourself as well?
Yeah, there's basically two splits. The first split is, are you the property owner or something else? That's the first split. So for the property owner, it's easy. You need to have coverage to ensure that if the building is just pummeled to the ground and it's just a pile of rubble. That you're going to get a check from the insurance company that will allow you to rebuild the property back to the way that it was.
That's the first priority. And that's landlord insurance, classically. Above and beyond that, if you're a co host. Now you're not so concerned with getting the property rebuilt, because that's the owner's dilemma. But, you now have liability as a co host. And the property owner may want you to have additional coverage.
So that's when you're going to have a conversation. About arbitrage coverage, etc, etc. And typically that's going to be a lot less expensive than a landlord insurance policy because you're no longer talking about. The probability of a hurricane coming through, ripping off the roof, breaking all the windows and causing 100, 000 of damage.
And what about any, any differences between, you know, if you have an ADU in the backyard or you're operating a room rental? The room rental, no, that's typically not going to change what you need for an ADU. It could, that is just going to increase the amount of additional coverage that you're going to buy.
So the way that insurance policies are written. Again, most of these documents were designed back in the 60s and 70s, so the idea of an ADU wasn't around. But they're thinking about the primary structure. And then there's gonna be a line item there when they can say, Hey, do you have any outbuildings? And so then you would say, Okay, maybe I have a detached garage, I have a barn, I have an ADU.
And that's a line where you say, Actually, yeah, my outbuilding is actually a whole other house. And it's, I need 100, 000 in coverage for it. And that's where you would put it. But that's, again, an important thing to be able to have a conversation with somebody who understands rental properties, just to say, Hey, I've got the primary house and then I've got the EDU and I need coverage for both.
Well, thank you so much, Darren. Uh, great explanation. I think just one main last question that we have, and then I have also added some of the guest testimonials or customer testimonials from your website that we can kind of wrap up with. Uh, but before that, one of the nice things is Steadily provides so many custom options.
Uh, with your landlord insurance. And when you're playing around with it, it's, it doesn't change the price, uh, hardly at all, just by a few dollars most of the time. So I wanted you as the founder to kind of be able to speak to some of those additional coverage options, um, which ones you would recommend and when and why someone may want certain coverages and to call out, uh, I'm very intrigued by the, bed bug option because all of us landlords fear bed bugs.
So that's fantastic. So which, which of these items would you like to highlight? Bed bug coverage is a great one. I like to bump up my property content coverage is what it's called. And that is going to be for the paintings on the wall or the nice silverware that I brought in. All of those things that tend to add up to 15, 20, 30, 000 worth of stuff.
So that's a thing that, uh, we made a little slider within the coverage aid so that folks can say, well, I really put a lot into furnishing my property and I want to bump up that. But yes, there's a lot of coverages. The other one that folks rarely think about. Is there's a type of coverage that protects you for changes in the legal rules around your property.
This is kind of an edge case, but it bites people more often than you would think. So property gets built in the 80s and at the time the zoning rules and the building rules were X. And all the other properties are grandfathered in. And then some destruction happens to the property. There's a fire. And you want to rebuild it back to the way that it was when it was originally constructed in the 80s.
But then the county comes in and says, Nope! The building codes have changed, and now you have to meet this higher standard where new properties have to have 50 feet of frontage area from the nearest sidewalk, or like, something like that. There's been a change in the laws, and you were totally fine until you wanted to do work on the property.
And now you're toast. So there's a coverage for that exact thing. And it's incredibly cheap. It topped in like 5 or 10. And so if you're in an area of the country where you know that folks have been playing with the regs a fair amount, That's a box to consider checking. And this is also a point where I'm guessing that someone could work with the Stanley representative and, and say, Hey, I have a property in this part of the country.
How does my coverage look here? Where do you think I'm lacking? Right. And is that something that you guys can offer to landlords? Exactly right. So the typical flow that we see is a property investor will come to the website. Exactly. And in three to four minutes, they got their quote and they look at it and they're like, yeah, this ballpark seems pretty competitive and interesting.
But I have questions and that's when they'll say, I'm, I want to talk to a human just to make sure to ask a few questions, make sure I'm getting the right thing. So they hop on the phone, they get comfort that they're buying the right thing to maybe make a few tweaks and add the types of extra atoms that we're talking about.
And then they press the checkout button and that's what we're set up to do. If folks want to go through the whole thing on their phone and never talk to anyone, they're welcome to do it. But most people end up talking to someone for a few minutes to get comfortable that they're buying the right product.
And guys, steadily is such a great team. This is why we picked them is because you literally can pick up the phone and talk to someone in just a couple of minutes and you'll be able to have a real conversation and just have it be authentic and, and get really good information and have them get to know you and your specific needs.
And so you can. Know that you have exactly what you need in place to protect you. Definitely. I, when I went through the quote process, about maybe 30 minutes after I got a call and they said, Hey, this is so and so with Stanley, just saw that you started a quote with us. Do you have any questions? And I was able to say, Great timing.
I have a few questions. So it was, it was like very thoughtful, like the timing between starting the quote and the followup, it just felt like you were being well taken care of and just like you're saying, it was down to earth, uh, wasn't trying to oversell the product. It was just a conversation. He was just there to answer the questions that I had.
Uh, so fantastic. Um, The nice thing that we haven't mentioned yet is through the quote process, you actually have the option to activate the plan at the end. So keep that in mind is you can actually start your plan through Furnished Finder. Uh, and because we want you guys to be set up for success, we want.
To provide you the midterm rental tools where you can breathe and say, ah, I can do this, whether you're a new landlord or adding your, you know, 20th property, whatever it is. So, um, thanks for tuning in with us today. Um, I did say I wanted to wrap up with a couple customer reviews, so I'll just pick one, maybe two, uh, cause I can't choose.
They're both really good. And so we've got Robert in Pennsylvania and his, he said that, uh, it's the best coverage option for small landlords. Very impressed by easy to navigate website and competitive coverage. Couldn't ask for better. And then Eric in Pennsylvania said, I had a quote within half an hour and then connected them, uh, with my mortgage lender for closing via email.
Very easy to work with. So just great testimony. Um, Darren, why don't you let, um, listeners know how they can follow you and Steadley's posts on social media and any last things you'd like to wrap up with. If you'd like to follow us and learn more on steadily. com, we have links to our YouTube channel where we're regularly putting out videos for landlords who want to learn more about how to optimize the insurance side of what they're doing and invite you to follow us there and continue the process.
And obviously if you're not already a subscriber to furnished finders podcast, I recommend that you do it right now. And guys go get your free quote, go get your free quote. It's literally free and you can make sure that you are covered the way you need to be covered. And just. Get in touch with this great company, so you've got nothing to lose.