Insurance For Multifamily Residential Properties Can Be A Nightmare. Does It Have To Be?
As many property managers and building owners know, few things are worse than fires on a property. Cooking is one of the leading causes of apartment fires every year. As a property manager or owner, you do everything you can to protect your buildings and tenants. However, many things are unfortunately out of your control, and in your tenants’ hands instead.
It could be something as simple as a tenant taking a phone call while cooking, and just a few short minutes later a fire starts to engulf their kitchen. It’s many owners’ worst nightmare. Of course, many standard insurance policies protect the owner from losses due to fires, but there is still the cost of the deductible and other unforeseen costs that pop up, especially in cases where property and item damage are not the only losses.
Insurance is already incredibly hard to acquire for multifamily properties, not to mention expensive as well. Incidents like the one portrayed above can only make it more expensive and difficult to maintain and renew insurance. And many insurance companies are wary of the residential arena and often seek to increase rates dramatically.
Fortunately, there are fire suppression products, such as Auto-Out®, that can help prevent these incidents from becoming a worst-case scenario for residential property management companies and building owners. Devices like Auto-Out® work upon flame activation to help extinguish cooking fires before they spread past the stovetop. Some insurance companies offer discounts for installing these devices, which are relatively inexpensive.
Easily installed in the vent hood above the range, the Auto-Out® device is activated by excessive flames on the stovetop, releasing fire-suppressant powder onto the flames. There have been countless cases whereby these devices prevented a fire from spreading.
These devices have proven performance, are an affordable and simple solution to a potentially devastating event, and offer the added benefit of controlling insurance costs.