If you do have a mandate for renters insurance in your lease agreement, it doesn’t do much good if you aren’t taking the steps to ensure residents are in compliance. Below are a few tactics we’ve seen that when put in practice have a significant impact on the number of insured residents at the beginning of the lease as well as the number of residents that maintain coverage while residing at your property.

Reduce friction for residents to become compliant

First, we suggest taking an integrated approach to your renters insurance offering. What we mean by that is you should be offering applicants the opportunity to purchase renters insurance directly from you when signing the lease. When it comes time to close, you want to remove as much friction as possible. Any hold up or delays could result in the resident walking away and leaving to a competing property.

Even if they don’t bolt, sending them to a third party lengthens the time to close and also makes keeping track of the policy more difficult because you’re no longer in control of the process. However, when properties have Entrata ResidentInsure they maintain control from the start of application through signing. That’s because residents are able to add a policy directly from the application, giving you the peace of mind that your units are covered and residents the peace of mind their personal property is protected.

Have tools in place that take monitoring compliance off your plate

If residents opt to purchase from another vendor, it’s important to have tools that make it easy for you to know which units are out of compliance. Most importantly because you’ll want to be able to back-date your gap coverage on your master policy in the event something does happen, your property is protected. Secondly, you’ll want to have a streamlined process for notifying and nudging residents to reinstate their policy.

In the past, this required a lot of manual effort by on-site staff. They would have to make calls to insurance companies, become registered as interested parties, and keep track of all the paperwork for each and every unit—and if there’s one thing insurance companies love to do is drown you in paperwork—all of which took a lot of time and attention. Entrata’s Insurance Verification service automates this process, saving your team time that can now be allocated to better serving residents as opposed to being bogged down by administrative tasks.

Make your insurance program your competitive advantage — no, really

It might sound crazy at first that something like your renters insurance program can be one of your key differentiators, but when you take a closer look it makes perfect sense. The application process is one of the first experiences residents have with your property, and if you make signing the lease and moving in simple, you’re starting the relationship off on the right foot.

That’s why when you remove all of the hassle that used to exist in acquiring renters insurance and signing the lease, you’re well on your way to creating a life-long resident who also won’t hesitate to refer friends and family to your communities. The following section will dig into the steps to take to help make your insurance program your competitive advantage.

Find the right insurance partner

So what can you do to lay this foundation for your residents? The first step is finding the right insurance partner. Just like searching for personal insurance, this can be a time consuming and daunting process, but it will be worth the extra effort in the long run. Some things to consider when evaluating potential partners include:

Will you be able to access all of the necessary data needed to ensure compliance to your coverage mandates? Will the provider be able to integrate with the systems you’re already using? Will you be able to handle the claims or collections in a timely manner from residents?

Make convenience a top priority

Residents are looking for convenience during the application process. Whether it’s checking their credit or providing proof of insurance, you should look to remove any potential stumbling blocks along the way. A survey of Entrata users shows that 85% of resident policy holders are most satisfied with the convenience of shopping for a policy when required to do so.

__Deliver an embedded experience __

One way property owners can make purchasing renters insurance more convenient is by offering an embedded experience as opposed to using a third-party integration to manage your insurance program.

Embedded experiences are seamless and don’t require the applicant to leave your system. Leaving your system is bad for your customer for a number of reasons. First, going to a third-party provider might require your customer to create another account with another login to remember. Who wants another password to keep track of? Nobody that we know. Second, as mentioned before, any time an applicant is required to leave your system before completing the process gives them an opportunity to drop out completely.

Offer deposit alternatives

One of the hardest parts of the application process for many potential residents is coming up with first and last month’s rent along with a security deposit. That’s why many property owners are turning to deposit alternatives. Deposit alternatives come in the form of surety bonds or rent guarantees, both of which function as insurance that protects the property owner in the event damage occurs during the lease or the resident fails to pay rent.

Deposit alternatives also provide users with a better move in and move out experience because there is one less thing for them to worry about at the beginning and end of the lease. Not to mention, the headaches it will save your staff in making sure deposits are returned to residents or from having to explain to the residents why they’re not getting their deposit back.

Entrata’s deposit alternative solution, DepositInsure, allows you to remove financial barriers to entry for residents without lowering the cost of deposits or eliminating them to be more appealing, all while receiving more coverage to damage on the unit. DepositInsure also limits the liability on lost rent or damage to the unit.

Learn More

Learn more about resident insurance, check out our latest ebook, Everything you ever wanted to know about renters insurance but were afraid to ask today.