Protect your rental property and the income it generates

This is the foundation of any landlord policy. It pays to repair or rebuild the physical structure after a covered loss such as fire, lightning, windstorm, or hail. For single-family rentals and duplexes, that includes the dwelling itself plus attached and detached structures like garages, sheds, and fences. For apartment or condo buildings, limits need to scale with the full replacement value of the building, all common areas, and any additional structures like parking garages or maintenance buildings on the same lot.

Idaho's freeze-thaw cycles, wildfire smoke seasons, and hailstorms that roll through the Treasure Valley every spring are real contributors to property claims here. Coverage should reflect those regional perils, not a national average.

When a covered loss makes your rental unit uninhabitable, the rent stops coming in but the mortgage does not stop going out. Lost rental income coverage, sometimes called loss of use or fair rental value coverage, reimburses you for the rent you cannot collect while repairs are underway. Policies set a time limit on this reimbursement, so it matters that the limit is long enough to cover a realistic repair timeline. A fire that requires an 8-month rebuild needs a policy that actually runs 8 months, not 60 days.

If a tenant or visitor is injured on your property and files a lawsuit, landlord liability coverage pays for your legal defense and, if you lose, up to the policy limit in damages. This coverage can also extend to certain tenant-related legal claims, including wrongful eviction, depending on how the policy is written. Without it, a single slip-and-fall on an icy Boise sidewalk you forgot to salt could cost more than a year of rental income in legal fees alone.

If you furnish a rental unit, supply a lawnmower or snowblower for tenant use, or leave any equipment on the property, that property is yours to insure. Personal property coverage picks up the cost when those items are damaged by a covered peril. Separately, equipment breakdown coverage addresses mechanical failures in systems like HVAC units, boilers, and water heaters, because standard rental property policies typically exclude equipment breakdown as a cause of loss. A failed boiler in a multi-unit building in January is not a minor inconvenience.

Several important exposures fall outside a standard landlord policy and require separate coverage or endorsements. Vacant property coverage protects a building between tenants or during renovations, when most standard policies reduce or eliminate coverage after 30 to 60 consecutive days vacant. Ordinance or law coverage pays the added cost of bringing a damaged structure up to current building codes during repair, which matters in any Treasure Valley city that has updated its code since your building was constructed. Employment practices liability insurance (EPLI) protects you if you employ property managers, maintenance workers, or landscapers and face a claim of wrongful termination or discrimination. Home-sharing coverage fills the gap for owners who rent a room or accessory dwelling unit in their primary residence through a short-term rental platform, where both the homeowners policy and the platform's own coverage are typically inadequate.