Thread: Tenant Insurance

It is important for you to provide tenant insurance to your customers. It gives your facility some legal protection and provides a service to the tenants. There are many options available.

Glad to see Randy “the queen of insurance” Tipton helping the storage industry. It’s a pleasure to have you on the site.

Mike

For those of you who are using the protection plan, how is it working for you? We have alarms, cameras, fence, strict procedures, require disc locks, etc. and have not had any crime on our property during the 6 years we have been open, so people think they don't need insurance or the protection plan. We are in an area with crime, but people feel safe here. Unfortunately, we all know that things can happen. How do we sell the protection plan?

Hi Colleen,

Here are some ideas and methods being used by other facilities that have successfully implemented the protection plan:

1. A homeowners policy might pay, but your tenant will certainly have a deductible. The Protection Plan has no deductible.
2. Things do happen, like a bldg collapse, fire because of stuff stored in a unit or a tenant smoking, or a vehicle crashing into the building. Even the safest facility can suffer a loss that is "fortuitous". These are just some of the types of losses that occur - that tenants often don't think about.
3. You could suggest that the tenant buy the protection plan as "deductible coverage" if they think the renters/HO policy will respond.
4. You might point out the lease requires the tenant to have insurance on their goods and the Protection Plan satisfies this requirement.

Hope this helps. The Protection Plan seems to be growing in popularity across the country.

Best to you,
Randy

we have been researching adding tenant insurance to our locations and I want to go with a pay with rent option.
It seems to two main options are SafeStor and Bader company. Both will work with site link, does anyone have any opinions about either of these companies?

Aloha RandyL,

I've had no experience with SafeStor, however, we offer the Bader coverage at our facility. In January, we had the first claim ever placed by a tenant.

I monitored the process from our initial contact with the company, through the final claim payment for the customer. Both our customer and I agreed that they were pro-active, attentive, kept the claim moving forward, and were true to their coverage claims. All in all, it was a positive experience for us both.

It is my understanding from our owners, that Bader was chosen because they were one of the only companies who would provide coverage with our location being so physically close to the ocean. Hope this helps!

We have Bader here as well. We find that when you call even just for supplies they treat you like you are there only customers. We get our supplies very fast!
Have any of you been having problems selling the tenant on the insurace?? We have seen a drop in the past 3 months here in Tampa. We stress that it is not just for break in(never had one here) but also for hurricanes and such. We still get a No thanks.
I had a tenant run a motorcycle into a door (almost through it) Well the person's unit she hit had just dropped his insurance. So the gal had to pay for the broken stuff & our door.
I tell them well you just never know what could happen.

I have been using Safestor for just over a year now and have nothing but good things to say about it.

They offer plenty of material for training and marketing (Free), and the one claim I had they stood behind like they said they would.

The administrative fee helps out alot also!