Mr Money Mustaches 2016 budget- ??? does not insure house

[I'm a red panda]

Not a risk I would be willing to take.   Granted, he has mad construction skills and probably figures he can just fix any issue, but if it burns down or something - you would lose all your possessions as well as the structure.  Now I guess if you are worth millions and the max loss is only $300K then you figure you could handle that - but I can't handle a 300K loss.

This is one thing that makes him different than many of us. He is worth millions.

[dragoncar]

Not a risk I would be willing to take.   Granted, he has mad construction skills and probably figures he can just fix any issue, but if it burns down or something - you would lose all your possessions as well as the structure.  Now I guess if you are worth millions and the max loss is only $300K then you figure you could handle that - but I can't handle a 300K loss.

This is one thing that makes him different than many of us. He is worth millions.

If it was just structure replacement, I wouldn't insure.  I don't buy earthquake insurance in CA, for example.  But liability is a different story.  Unless MMM can bring the dead back to life or regrow lost limbs, which I don't put past him, I still think it's shortsighted to ignore forgo liability insurance.

[kenmoremmm]

My 401k is protected from creditors by federal ERISA law. My IRAs are protected at their current balances by my state's laws, as is my house. The only assets I have that could be targeted are my taxable brokerage account and my checking/savings, which is mid-five-figures total.

how do rental properties work, held under a personal account? is this where the long-standing debate of LLC-or-not comes in? it seems like the most agreed upon answer there is to get an umbrella policy since it covers you as well as an LLC without the hassles associated with LLC.

[dragoncar]

My 401k is protected from creditors by federal ERISA law. My IRAs are protected at their current balances by my state's laws, as is my house. The only assets I have that could be targeted are my taxable brokerage account and my checking/savings, which is mid-five-figures total.

how do rental properties work, held under a personal account? is this where the long-standing debate of LLC-or-not comes in? it seems like the most agreed upon answer there is to get an umbrella policy since it covers you as well as an LLC without the hassles associated with LLC.

umbrella insurance isn’t going to do the same thing as an llc... at some point it can make sense to do the llc (and it’s not generally expensive anyways) in addition to umbrella.  The hardest part about small-landlord llc is keeping everything properly separated.  If you are doing work yourself, then the llc doesn’t help you if the problem arises from shoddy workmanship (for example).  If you are mixing personal and business funds, you are losing the protection of the llc.  And so on. 

But if all your wealth is in the llc, then there’s not much benefit either, because a creditor taking your business assets essentially bankrupts you