So my renter’s insurance is lapsing tomorrow (Sunday) for non-payment, because I’m a moron and thought I had automatic payments on it, like I do my car insurance (and because I’ve had this issue in the past for the same policy). I was notified of this by phone this morning, and I just played the message. I can’t pay online, and the office is officially closed tomorrow (though I left messages just in case someone does come in tomorrow).
So I may have to find another carrier, since I need the insurance for my rental agreement. Will this be difficult logistically, given the circumstances and that I have a full time job right now? Am I facing a big increase in premium? I haven’t done this in a while.
But when I do, I’ll make sure the auto pay is in place.
I recently had a lapsed water and sewer bills, for exactly the same reason. I thought all the mail from the water company were acknowledgements of my payment… until I got a disconnect notice for over $2,000. :eek:
Why would you need to find another company if there is a one-day lapse in coverage? If there even is a one-day lapse? In my experience with a major insurers, if you call their 800 number to make a payment or make a payment on-line on the weekend you can continue the policy with no lapse. If you wait until Monday, you can make the payment with a one-day lapse.
Call the company’s 800 number, go on line or call the agent’s office. If the agent is a dedicated agent (State Farm, etc.) after hours the phone is switched to the main office and they can take your payment.
The main office refuses to take my money. I can only deal with my local agent on the matter (which is bad for my paranoia for the 36 hours I don’t have coverage, which is one reason why I thought I may have to find another option).
I’m so sorry that the main office won’t help you. I’ve never heard of that. As I said, I’ve dealt with major insurers and they have had “Jake at State Farm” or the equivalent to handle after hours and weekend payments or questions. (However, I have only had licenses in California and Arizona. Other states may be different.)
On Monday make the payment as soon as you can. They should accept the payment with a lapse of one day, maybe two. If they won’t accept the payment or if you are fed up with them and want to switch companies, call one of the major insurers. I know that State Farm will bind coverage online or over the phone 24/7 and I am reasonably sure that Allstate, Farmers, Travelers, Hartford, Nationwide, Liberty Mutual, etc. will too. If you want to switch companies on Sunday contact one of them. Renters policies are easy and inexpensive.
Also get in contact with the apartment leasing office on Monday to let them know you have replaced the insurer. Also don’t forget to tell the new insurer to list the apartment as an additional insured.
I can’t tell you about renter’s insurance - I’m not licensed for it - but I can tell you most life insurance contracts have agreements that allow for late payments for a month or two so you’re not automatically out of luck if something goes wrong.
AFAIK, Renters insurance purchases aren’t available 24/7 like car insurance. If you call, you’ll likely be told an agent will get back to you on Monday anyway.
Years ago, due to finances I didn’t pay my car insurance for two months and was cancelled. I was a day or two before I paid by CC over the phone and my agent said that if I was cancelled again in the next two years, I would be permanently dropped (for car insurance) from the company.
What state do you live in that you can have your insurance covered without at least 21 days written notice? IME, under no circumstances is it ok for a company to call you and say, “Bro, you’re hosed as of, like, tomorrow.” IIRC, normally, when a policy is cancelling for nonpayment effective May 13, 2018 you will have a reinstatement grace period of like a couple weeks as well. Cancellation rules tend to favor the consumer very heavily, making it nigh impossible for someone to end up in the predicament outlined in your OP. I’m guessing you’ll be alright, but you want to get on top of this anyhow.
Also: why dafuq does your landlord care about you having a renter’s policy? It only covers YOUR stuff, and liability situations where you’ve screwed up. If you flake out with the deep fryer and burn the place down the building is covered under the landlord’s Rental Dwelling Policy(RDP)–which also covers zero of your stuff. I can’t say as I’ve ever heard of a RDP insurer seeking recovery from a tenant. I suppose it’s not impossible, but even if they did it’s no skin off landlord’s nose if you can’t pay his insurance company back.
I mean Renter’s insurance is a good idea and all, but it might be interesting to see why your landlord feels like he has any interest in compelling you to get it.
A few decades ago a friend of mine was late with a car insurance payment. He did pay, and the company then did cash the check. But when my friend later put in a claim for an accident after the payment he was told that the insurance was no good due to the delinquency. “But you cashed my check!” — so they refunded the premium. :rolleyes:
A friend of mine sent her car insurance premium a few days late and was sweating out concern that she’d be cancelled. Then she was in a major at-fault accident with injuries. She was hospitalized five days, her passengers were still in hospital when she was released.
She was going through the huge stack of mail and came across her cancellation notice. Later in the stack she found a “please ignore cancellation notice” letter. Very close call, one of her passengers had an extended hospitalization that would have destroyed her.
I’m guessing it’s a combination of the bolded (as in, if you set a fire, he wants YOUR insurance to pay first to avoid jacking up his premiums), and protecting himself in case HE screws up. If there’s a problem due to his screwup, he doesn’t want you suing him to replace your stuff.
For the OP: If you can get the premium sorted out on the Monday (and I know that was a couple days ago), you should be fine unless the policy has a waiting period before being fully reinstated. Obviously, you’re screwed if anything happens during that brief lapse.
I don’t know how common a waiting period would be. For flood insurance, there is a 30 day waiting period, presumably to keep people from purchasing a policy only when they hear there’s a hurricane coming. Last year, I goofed and didn’t pay that in time for our condo in Florida and there was a 30 day wait to reinstate it.
As a side note: what’s with the big insurers not taking payments online??? Our flood insurance is managed by Allstate (I think) and those policies can’t be paid online; I had to mail a check (I think I could have mailed something authorizing a one-time bank draft but at that point, might as well write the check). I can’t pay the homeowner’s policy online either - it’s nominally through an Allstate agent but the insurer is actually St John’s (the big insurers won’t write policies in much of Florida; I had a hell of a time finding someone who would). And neither will do any sort of monthly / automatic draft; mail has to be exchanged each year.
Yup, far from it. Even if one doesn’t have renter’s insurance some think that they are covered by landlord’s insurance, but this isn’t the case either.
Renter’s insurance is only $15 a month so there is no reason why both the renter and landlord don’t have insurance policies. This conversation should come up at a lease signing and I’m sure both the renter and landlord can always come up with some kind of plan to be covered.
Oh, that I know. I used to sell the stuff. But I’ve also rented and perhaps it is just my bad luck to have never run across a landlord whose only concern for my possessions wasn’t that I left none of them behind when I vacate. Landlord doesn’t get liability coverage from my renter’s policy, and his stuff isn’t covered by my renter’s policy–so why should he care? I mean, I would strongly advise a tenant in an avuncular way to get it because why not, but I’m not going to possibly chase a tenant off for not doing something that is of no benefit to me.
If you (the tenant) cause a fire, the landlord’s policy will pay to repair the place.
But you bet they’ll be looking for a way to recover their losses, if there’s any other insurance in place. I believe the term is “subrogation”.
Not quite the same scenario, but whenever a family member visits an orthopedist (we are all accident-prone), we get something from our health insurance basically saying “pleeeeeeeeez tell us this was caused by someone we can sue!”. As in, if it was the result of a car wreck, for example, and the wreck was caused by someone else, they want to go after the other guy’s insurance.
I could imagine a landlord policy stating that any tenants must have renter’s insurance in place as a requirement to be allowed to lease the place. I don’t know how common that requirement might be, but that would certainly explain the OP’s situation.
Leaper, what ultimately happened? Were you able to get it reinstated?
If your deep fryer burns down the building, the owner might like for you to bear the cost of his deductible. A clause in the lease requiring the tenant to carry renter’s insurance (and provide for the landlord to be authorized to make a claim against the policy when such an exigency arises) is how the owner can protect his interests.
Dunno if it is also a way for the owner’s insurance company to subrogate their loss against the tenant’s policy, but if it were, that might be good for a lower premium for the owner.