Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in Washington

Re: tenant law

There is not a law that requires renters to have insurance. If something happens to your personal property it would be handy to have it, but it isn't required, like liability insurance is before you drive.

Your real issue is whether or not your landlord can require you to carry insurance as a condition of renting you a tenancy.

The answer is a qualified no. Qualified because you can choose whether or not to rent from this person/company - and if you cannot stand them your remedy is to move.

Nice, huh?

Landlords have this amazing idea that they can contract around negligence, which cannot be done. Also, bad things happen that are the landlord's fault or are sheer negligence, and your landlord cannot require you to pay for repairs/replacements to your property that he's responsible for, no matter what the contract says.

There is a section in the RLTA that states that any clauses in contracts that are contrary to the RLTA are unenforceable.

That said, it's a private contract problem. If you don't like his demand, don't reward him by continuing to rent from him.

Hope this helps. Powell