Sometimes a tenant’s goods and items will become damaged while in storage. Often a well-written lease will help protect an owner in the event that items are ruined, lost, or stolen while in the storage facility, however having customer goods legal liability coverage works in conjunction with a lease to protect an owner when a tenant claims damages to their stored items.
Different from a warehouse, a self-storage facility is filled with items that are in the control of the tenant, not the owner. The storage facility clearly states that they will not take care, custody, or control of items in the actual storage facility of tenants that are current on their storage payments.
Owners/Operators May Be Responsible for Damage or Loss
However, there are some situations where a storage facility owner/operator may be responsible for damage or loss of items. For example, if the tenant can prove that an owner knowingly did nothing to repair a damaged roof and water or mold damage caused harm to the contents of the storage unit, the self-storage facility owner can be held liable for any damages or loss of goods.
Another example of needed customer goods legal liability coverage includes insect or rodent damage. If a self-storage facility owner doesn’t have a pest control company that is scheduled to come out on a regular basis to treat for bugs and rodents, a tenant can claim that the storage facility owner knew of the problem and did nothing to prevent the eventual damage.
StorInsure Helps Agents Provide Complete Coverage
As an agent, advising a self-storage facility owner of the endless reasons that tenants claim damages to their storage items and urging them to protect their business with customer goods legal liability insurance. A well-written policy can include customer goods legal liability insurance coverage that will provide protection for your clients who own self-storage facilities.
The customer goods legal liability insurance coverage does not include defense costs and is outside of the policy limits. Therefore, the limit chosen should take any legal defense coverage into mind. With tenants finding many different reasons to claim damages to their stored goods, including legal costs is best for your clients.
Coverage limits range from $25,000 to $1 million per occurrence. Discussing the proper coverage limit amount to present your client to ensure proper coverage is also important. A good rule of thumb to determine coverage amounts is to take the limit for the maximum value of stored goods in a unit and multiply it by the largest building owned.
As an exclusive self-storage insurance program, StorInsure is designed to assist agents with providing their clients with the broadest, completely comprehensive, and most competitive coverage available. Contact StorInsure today.