The day a tenant moves in, your home policy stops describing your house.
A basement suite, a room over the garage, a laneway house. The building did not change, but who lives in it did. A home policy is written for the owner and the owner’s family, and an insurer that finds out about a tenant after a claim is entitled to ask why nobody said so. Telling them is the whole job.
Tell us about the suite Read the short answer firstThe tenant has to be declared.
Your policy does not cover them.
Only a landlord policy replaces it.
Does my home insurance cover a suite I rent out?
Not on its own. A home policy covers the owner, the owner’s family and the owner’s own things. A paying tenant is a change of occupancy, and the policy has to be told about it and rewritten to suit.
The Insurance Bureau of Canada is direct about the limit: “It does not include your tenant’s contents or personal liability.” The bigger risk is not the tenant’s sofa. It is the policy itself. The same guidance warns that failing to disclose the occupancy may void the home policy, which means the house, not just the suite.
Most owners think of this as a small extra. It is not an extra, it is a different policy. Rental income needs replacing if a fire makes the suite unlivable. Liability now has to answer for a tenant and the tenant’s visitors on your stairs. And the deductible, the water cover and the claims history all sit with you, not with them, no matter who left the tap running. Read the Insurance Bureau of Canada on renting out a room (opens in a new tab).
Four things that change the day the suite is rented.
Who the policy is written for
An owner-occupied policy and a policy with a tenant in it are not the same document. Tell your insurer before the tenant moves in, and keep a note of the date you told them.
The rent you would lose
If a fire or a flood empties the suite for four months, the mortgage does not pause. Cover for lost rental income is a landlord feature and it is not in a plain home policy.
Liability for someone else’s life
Their visitors use your steps. Their cooking is in your kitchen. Liability has to stretch over people the original policy never had in mind.
The tenant’s own insurance
Yours will never cover their belongings. Put it in the tenancy agreement, ask for proof, and ask again each year. It protects them and it protects you.
Three houses, three quiet changes.
The basement that paid the mortgage
The suite was finished for family, then rented when family moved out. The policy still said owner occupied. Nobody noticed until a claim asked who lived downstairs.
The room let to a student
One room, one lodger, one small monthly amount. It still counts as renting, and the insurer would still rather hear it from the owner than from a claim form.
The move that became a rental
A couple bought a new place and kept the old one. The house they had lived in for years was suddenly a rental property, insured as a home.
The questions landlords ask first.
It is one room and my nephew pays a little. Does that count?
Tell us anyway. Money changing hands for a place to live is what an insurer looks at, and a short conversation now is worth more than an argument later.
Will this cost a lot more?
Usually less than owners expect, because you are also adding cover you did not have, like lost rent. The number that matters is what an undisclosed tenant costs at claim time.
Can I make the tenant buy insurance?
You can ask for it in the tenancy agreement, and many landlords do. Ask for proof when they move in and again each year, because a policy that lapsed is the same as no policy.
I rent it out short term instead. Is that the same?
No, and it is usually treated more strictly. Short stays are a different exposure and often need a different policy again. Tell us which one you are actually doing.
Who pays if their guest is hurt on my stairs?
That normally lands on your liability as the owner, which is exactly why the policy needs to know a tenant is there. It is the cover most worth getting right.
Two that sit next to this on the same site: what your landlord’s policy does not cover, and running a business from your home.
Not the question you had? Tell us how the building is used and a licensed person will answer it. Use the short contact form.
Tell the insurer before the tenant, not after the claim.
It is one phone call to describe the building honestly, and it keeps the cover on the whole house, not just the part you live in.