Business meeting:
Approve the minutes: Mary Ann 1st, Russell 2nd
Treasurer’s report:
- The current balance in our account is $1,185.59.
- We paid for the Elks rental through 2025 as they were nice enough to give us a discount if we paid up front.
- We also paid our $400 annual dues to the Ohio Apartment Association.
- If you have not paid your 2025 dues by March 15, you will stop receiving the rental request leads.
- Please pay your 2025 dues – $35 for the calendar year, payable by cash/check at a meeting, mail a check to PO Box 221, or use PayPal (paypal.me/findlayfaaa)
No Old Business.
New Business:
Landlord 101 Workshop
- Currently 22 people are registered. Please register by Saturday, February 15.
- Saturday, February 22, 2025, 9:30 am – 12:30 pm at the public library
- It’s free!
- Register at findlayarearentals.org, click on Landlord 101 in the menu, or go here
- Multiple people will be presenting on a lot of different topics
- Please register so we can get a count since space is limited
Legislative update: Beginning of the legislative period so nothing to discuss now. There’s a meeting on Friday for updates.
How are property sales? A lot of listings are sitting out there, but things are picking up this month. We sent out a report back in January that covered through the end of December.
Tom Miller still hosts an informal lunch every Tuesday at a different area restaurant to converse about the rental business. Contact Tom (419-420-2133) if you’re not on the email list for that and want to be included.
If you have ideas for speakers for future meetings, contact Jim Staschiak or Katie Erickson (findlayarearentals@gmail.com).
The next meeting is Tuesday, March 11.
Motion to end business meeting: 1st Roger, 2nd Belinda
Insurance Agents
Brad Bauer – B. Bauer Insurance, bbauerinsurance.com
Dominic Frey – Hitchings Insurance, hitchingsinsurance.com
What do they look at for insurance rates?
Roof, age of dwelling, electrical updates, plumbing updates, claims history, pride in ownership, etc.
Many will only do actual cash value versus replacement cost. Replacement cost may not even be available. ACV: insurance company can depreciate it and give you a lesser payout depending on the age of the roof. Roofs are the #1 claim, so many companies are moving to that.
Age of the dwelling: some carriers have restrictions on the age.
Does it have a fuse box vs breakers? Older wiring or updated? Knob and tube wiring is a difficult one and you’ll get a higher rate. A lot of carriers will not write a flat roof, or they’ll ask for an exclusion unless it’s been redone in the last 10 years or so.
Student housing, section 8, and short-term rentals (i.e. Airbnb): If that’s your intent, you should let your agent know. That’s a big difference in liability, and not all carriers will do each of those. They have all these rules and regulations, and they can pick and choose what to insure. They have the right to deny a claim if it’s proven that you didn’t tell them you had one of these situations.
If older than 1950, they look for updates within the last 30 years of plumbing, electrical, HVAC, etc. Newer roofs help you get a better rate.
Dominic Frey – Hitchings Insurance, main in Findlay but also in North Baltimore and Carey. Been in the industry for 7 years. They do a lot of habitational risks – apartment complexes, single family, and everything in between. They are an independent agency and represent several insurance companies.
Brad Bauer – owner of B. Bauer Insurance, started about 2 years ago. He left another agency in town and started his own. He’s part of an insurance cluster, which allows him to sell about 40 different carriers. There are a lot of unique risks that certain carriers may not work with, but he has lots of options. With rentals, he often writes 1-4 family dwellings, apartment buildings, commercial buildings, college and short-term rentals, hotels, etc. Larger commercial policies are getting harder with a lot more restrictions. It depends on the specific risks involved.
Q: The declaration pages are getting more detailed in what’s excluded from coverages. All dog breeds can be excluded too (Cincinnati insurance), which puts landlords in a bad place.
A: If someone has an emotional support animal, the insurance carrier can’t deny coverage because of that. The dog exclusion list is usually the more “violent” breeds. If they have ESA paperwork, it’s not considered a pet at that point.
There’s a difference between emotional support animals and service animals; landlords can deny ESAs but not service animals. Some carriers will write policies for dangerous animals, but the rates are often higher.
In the last couple of years, the market has become significantly stricter. There are a lot more exclusions, but it can also be very difficult switching policies. Anything over four dwelling units gets a lot more complicated to insure.
An independent agent can help you compare between different policies and help you shop around and get the best rate.
Q: How many agencies still accept rentals? I’ve been kicked off policies twice with only 30 days’ notice.
A: Normally it’s 3-4 months’ notice. Your options are more limited for rentals even than 5 years ago. Two carriers said no more rental properties even in the last couple of months.
15-20 carriers will write rental policies, Wayne insurance (handout) is one of their best ones.
Wayne will allow you to write replacement cost coverage down to 40% of the replacement cost calculation. If replacement cost is $500k, they can write down to $200k. One factor in the premium is replacement cost, so you can write that lower. They have no dwelling age limit. They don’t care as much about the cosmetics of properties.
Q: How many actual carriers are there?
A: Probably 50 or so? Not really sure.
Q: Do you get any kind of discount as a landlord if you require your tenants to have renter’s insurance?
A: Some provide 8-10% discount for that. But the landlord needs to verify that the tenant does have that policy, or else any claim comes back on the landlord.
A: All landlords should require renter’s insurance and be listed as additional interest, so you get notices if they cancel it or anything. You can sue the tenant if they do catastrophic damage due to negligence, and their renters insurance will cover the lawsuit.
Q: Are their insurance riders you can get if the tenant doesn’t pay their rent?
A: That would be awesome, but no. They’d be violating their lease if they don’t pay their rent, there’s not an insurance solution to that.
Q: Years ago, a policy would reimburse for loss of rent income if there was major damage (fire etc.), but they’ve dropped that.
A: Some still do that, but only if the house is unlivable.
Renters insurance would also pay for a place for the tenant to stay if the house was unlivable, plus cover their material items.
Renters insurance is pretty cheap, and if they bundle with auto, the discount for bundling often offsets the cost.
If you rent to multiple people who are not related, each person should have their own renters insurance. They typically only insure family members on one policy.
Q: What’s happening with flood insurance?
A: Standard carriers don’t cover flood insurance, that’s separate. If you have a loan on the property, the lender requires the flood insurance. You need to consider the cost of flood insurance when setting your rents.
Q: If you have a rental property that doesn’t have primary coverage, can you make a claim on your umbrella policy?
A: No. There is a liability only policy you may want for that situation.
Q: Talk about umbrella policies for personal vs LLC.
A: Every company is different, but for Wayne they want you to have a personal umbrella plus a commercial if you have an LLC. Most don’t want you to mix personal and LLC liability policies. Some carriers, it depends on how many units, for whether you need a commercial umbrella or can just operate under personal.
Wayne does not write college rentals. If you had an umbrella with them, but you can’t have any college rentals on that umbrella policy. Every carrier is a little different, and it’s often different for every property and person as well.
Q: A tenant claimed property in a storage unit under their renters insurance. Can you still do that?
A: Some carriers will let you do that, it depends on the policy and the value of the property.
Q: Insurance seems to continue getting more and more difficult and premiums going higher. Where do you see the insurance business going in 5-10 years? How concerned should we be?
A: When things in the economy go up, they generally don’t go back down; the same goes for insurance. We don’t expect rates to go down, but we hope they will at least level off. Many insurance companies are struggling to make a profit due to claims they’re paying out. It’s cyclical, so at some point, they’ll make profits and want to bring people back, so they’ll drop some of the restrictions.
Insurance companies can’t just raise rates, they have to get them approved and provide evidence. Companies are taking precautions to reduce their liabilities, just like any other business. Once they make themselves more profitable, the carriers then have to revise their rates. It is possible that they could go down because they have to prove why they charge what they charge. If the claims are less, then they may have to drop their rates.
Rates went up so fast because companies had data to prove why they needed to raise them. But again, they likely won’t go down but will level off.
Q: Do you think you’ll see Ohio’s carriers adjusting premium rates based on what’s happening in California, for example?
A: Some carriers are only in certain states, so they don’t have properties in those disaster-prone areas. Smaller, regional carriers can have better rates since they’re more localized. Disasters will have some kind of impact no matter what, but ideally you want to lessen that impact. It’s all globally linked, but the impact could be lower.
Even in Ohio, we have natural disaster claims like hail, wind, etc. A lot of carriers are now trying to incentivize people to go to a higher deductible, which would prevent people from submitting low-end claims. There’s a lot more back-end hassle for lower dollar value claims. It just depends on the carrier.
Q: If you have a vacant property that you’re renovating, do you need a vacancy policy?
A: A lot of standard carriers won’t accept a lapsed property if you haven’t had insurance on it. You do want some kind of insurance policy on it. A vacant property is a higher risk for damage. Companies can drop your coverage if it’s been vacant for too long (possibly 60 days).
Q: What about any kind of non-standard situation, like a hoarder property where you don’t know what you’ll find?
A: There are carriers like USLI that will work with non-standard situations, but your premium will likely be higher.
Q: The landlord should handle damages up to what amount?
A: Some details for Wayne can be found on the handout. Multiple claims can make your rates go up, so you want to handle things without a claim as much as you can. Premium increases can be spread across all your properties.
Q: Is there a lower premium for a metal roof vs an asphalt roof?
A: No. But there is a difference between vinyl siding vs brick. The roof discount is generally based on the timing of when the roof was done. There would probably be a slight difference, but it would be minimal.
Q: Have you run into a situation with a commercial property where there are underground tanks?
A: That’s a very situation-specific thing that you should make your agent aware of as it would likely limit your options.
Some carriers will do special forms vs broad forms for rental properties. You want to consider the type of coverage you currently have when you’re shopping for a new carrier. Is the coverage comparable and worth the money you’ll save?
If you’re shopping, give the agent the current declaration page so they can give you an accurate comparison quote.
We can’t adjust the rates; we can only adjust the coverages offered. We can’t compare coverages if we don’t know all the details of what you have currently.