If you find yourself stuck with a home you cannot sell, you may have no other choice than to become an accidental landlord by renting your house. If you become an accidental landlord, you will need more home insurance than you currently have in order to protect your home and any possessions you leave there. You could find yourself needing to have loss of rent coverage, content coverage, and possibly even additional liability coverage.

Being a landlord opens you up to potentially having more liability than you simply would have as the homeowner. While you may not be responsible for the day-to-day upkeep of the home, you could still find yourself facing a lawsuit if you do not have someone maintaining the home properly or if you have been negligent in some other aspect of being a landlord.

You may have left items in your home for your new renters to use if you are an accidental landlord. Many times landlords keep furniture and appliances in the home that they rent to others. If this is the case, then you will want to purchase content insurance coverage to protect those items. Your tenant’s possessions will be their responsibility to cover with renters insurance, but their policy will not cover your possessions that you leave behind. If there is a fire, storm damage, or some other type of loss, you will want to have your possessions that were left in the home covered. This requires a separate policy.

As a landlord, you may also want to consider purchasing loss of rent coverage. Like a business that purchases business interruption insurance, loss of rent insurance coverage would provide you with a payout if you lose rent due to a fire or some other event that forces your tenant to move out of the home. Landlords are often dependent on their tenant’s rent in order to pay their mortgage payments. A loss of rental income could ultimately be devastating.

You have an increased risk of liability as a landlord. You are no longer simply responsible for your own home and possessions, but now you can ultimately be responsible for a piece of property that you are not physically at. You may want to consider purchasing additional liability insurance through an umbrella policy. An umbrella policy can provide you with additional insurance protection if you are sued that will provide a payout above and beyond your homeowners policy. Many times umbrella insurance policies can provide millions of dollars in coverage for a small additional premium. In today’s litigious society, umbrella insurance can provide the accidental landlord significant peace of mind for one a few extra dollars per month.