A good home insurance policy is going to protect your investment if your tenants accidentally burn down the place by smoking in bed, have a wild party and accidentally go through a window or two, or if they just don't report small problems until they turn into huge home-owner's headaches.

If you are a landlord, when looking for home owners insurance, you are going to want to make sure that it covers the property if you rent it out. A lot of the cheap home insurance policies won't, which means that if something happens when you have a tenant living in there, the home insurance agency won't pay you a single cent.

To find out whether or not your home owners insurance is going to cover your property when you have a tenant living in there, you are usually going to have to ask your agent. When you are asking him or her, make sure that you ask them to find the exact part in the policy where it says that it will. I'm sure that you took the time to read the home insurance policy before you signed the papers and gave enough money to cover the premiums for a year, but if you didn't, now is the time to read it, not after something happens.

A cheap home insurance policy for a landlord is just going to cover the major disasters. These disasters would be something like a hurricane hitting your house, hail damaging all of your windows, or your tenant falling off of the roof. Most home insurance policies are not going to include the items in the house that belong to the tenant, so they are going to have to buy a special renter's insurance as well.

If you have home insurance for a rental property, your insurance agent may require you to have a security deposit and lease for each of the tenants that you rent the property to. This is a good idea whatever you decided to do about insurance, because it will help to ensure that you get your rent money (part of that money is going to go towards paying the mortgage, insurance and taxes on the property). A lease is also going to give both the tenant and you, the landlord, information on what exactly is expected, and how long you are going to have to stand working with each other.

When deciding about home insurance for a rental property, it really pays to read the small print, ask questions, and be 100% sure that you are getting what you want before signing the policy and paying a lot of money. Landlords or second property owners have different home insurance needs than regular home owners, so make sure that you get the right insurance.