In a typical landlord/tenant situation, the landlord holds the homeowner's insurance policy, covering any damage to the structure and its fittings. Rental insurance covers only the renter's personal property - it is not for the homeowner's (landlord) protection but for their own. Should a fire occur, the homeowner's insurance will pay for the reconstruction of the home but unless the tenant has rental insurance, none of their furniture, goods, personal property, etc. are covered. I'm glad the damage will be covered by the appliance mfg. And given the situation, seems like you assuming the homeowner's insurance coverage is a good idea. Until more complete repairs can be made, the humidifier is also good idea. Won't get rid of any mold that may already be there but will prevent its spread.

To mepop, Thanks for your reply. I question your observation that the depreciation is due to poor maintenance. I keep everything up the way it should be kept. ( I admit that keeping very light colored ceramic tile spotless is hard with 3 big dogs). lol But, I do the best I can. Is it normal maintenance to remove the bottom panel of the dishwasher to check for leaks? I am a 66 year old retired female and don't recall ever hearing of a homeowner checking under there. I am going to purchase a sensor that detects water leaks which is a very cheap solution to the mess I have now. The dishwasher was purchased the end of 2012 and installed by the dealer and I had them out several times at the end of 2013 before the warranty ran out although there is a 10 year warranty for major components. There is no way to know how long it has been leaking but I sent the defective part that they replaced to the insurance company for possible subrogation. The bug situation are bugs that are called sowbugs ( they gather in damp places and to me look like tiny armadillos). The way I found them was I took up the transition piece between the laminate and the ceramic tile and they were crawling around on the plastic soft floor stuff. That was when I realized I had a big problem. If all the floor was tiled, I would have no way of knowing there was a leak until the floor all fell in. I am the one who crawled around in the 3 foot crawlspace and pulled wet insulation down to find the source of the leak and I also put a big fan and a dehumidifier down there to dry it out. I talked with the insurance adjuster yesterday and they are going to change the estimate to reflect the difference of subflooring and are going to leave it open ended for additional damages as the demo proceeds. Yesterday the flooring guy was here and he said you need to get that dining room flooring up sooner rather than later because that will have black mold under there so I moved all the dining room furniture out and took up all the flooring and plastic stuff, sprayed the wet plywood down with a bleach solution and got a fan running on it. Does that sound like a person who doesn't do maintenance? I may just paint that subfloor to seal in any mold until the contractor gets here. I had no plans for redoing the bathroom; it was perfect just the way it was.

We shopped for insurance a year or so ago, and based on a similar thread like this, I got quotes from Amica, Anpac, AAA (the auto club), and USAA. Since we got married, we had been using Erie for our home and USAA for auto (oddly, it was cheaper that way, even with the discount you get for putting everything with one company), then about 5 years ago, Erie jacked up their homeowner rates statewide, so we moved everything over to AmEx through Costco - going through Costco got us a discount over the regular Amex rates and it was a significant savings (close to four digits) over the Erie/USAA combo. We were happy with the Costco coverage but decided to shop around a year ago because they cheesed me off when they started charging a $3/mo convenience fee to charge my premium to my credit card (it had been free for years and they didn't tell me they were going to start charging the fee - it just showed up one day). I didn't really expect to find anything cheaper since the Costco rates had thoroughly trounced everyone else when I went with them, and they hadn't really gone up that much. Anyhow, to make a long story short, Amica seemed to have good coverage, but there rates were MUCH higher than the Costco insurance. USAA was a bit higher than the Costco and AAA was right about even. We ended up going with Anpac (American Nattional Property and Casualty). They were a company that was recommended on the thread just like this one from someone who had filed a claim and been happy with the service. They have a local agent, their rates were fantastic (we saved almost $1K/year for the exact same coverage when we switched over from the Costco plan). Plus they have this thing where if you go claim free for 3 years, you start getting a percentage of your premium refunded to you at the end of each year. We're into our 2nd year now, so in another year and a half, we should start getting rebate checks from the insurance company - it's a significant percentage too -- something like 20%. I don't know how they're doing it since their premiums are already lower than all the competitors I checked. But I'm not going to complain, LOL! I (knock on wood) haven't needed to file a claim so I don't know how that will be, but the agent is very responsive and I have no reason to think the company would give me a hard time. We do have fairly high deductibles since we figure it would take a lot to get us to file a claim that would ruin our claim-free streak and cut off our rebate checks, LOL! Oh - for reference, we are in southeast PA - not a lot of significant weather stuff here, but we do get snow/ice/hail storms. We're in a fairly crime-free rural area and haven't filed a claim on either auto or home (other than a windshield chip or two) in about 10 years.

Thanks for all of the very helpful replies. You've given me much to consider. I'm quickly learning that in shopping around, you aren't necessarily comparing apples to apples, and you really have to know what level of insurance you desire and you need to know what all of the "add-ons" that they often package together actually are. I find this all incredibly dull and tedious, but also recognize that it is of the utmost importance. We have been with Farmers for many years, working with the same agent (not broker; I see pros and cons of using a broker). I'm old-school enough to place value on the relationship that has been established with this agent's office. It's just really nice to be able to call his office and have his long-time assistant know exactly who I am (and I know her). After looking at a few other quotes, it appears that we will likely just stay where we are. We have excellent coverage with a company we trust, so while the premiums have risen, I do understand that there are outlying factors that are not within our control affecting these costs. We will still discuss possible ways of lowering our premium with our agent, but I have a feeling it will just mean taking away certain coverages, and I know we won't want to go there.