Norms, my liability insurance agent also recommended a clause requiring tenant homeowners ins. The reason was that, in the event of a liability claim, their ins would be the first to pay, and the majority of these type claims are settled out of court for a few thousand dollars. This would tend to keep my liability ins claim free, slowing the rate of premium increases.
Also, in the event of a catastrophic claim, such as a fire, where everything is a total loss, it's a cleaner settling. Renters ins pays their claims, my ins replaces my rental unit.
B
I think we're mixing vocabulary here.
I don't know who your insurer is, but I don't think that tenants rate homeowners insurance. They might need personal property insurance for their personal possessions, but they don't own the home. I don't care what tenants do for their personal property insurance needs, and I wouldn't put any verbiage into the lease.
I agree that landlords should have homewoners insurance. Our mortgage company is kinda insistent on this policy, too. But that doesn't have anything to do with my tenants or their liability or my liability, either-- that's just a fire policy. I don't talk about that in the lease, either.
Tenants could buy liability insurance, but I don't understand why I'd need to put a clause in a lease. I can see that my insurance agent would want my tenants to have liability insurance, because it saves "my" insurance company some money on paying out claims. But my insurance agent isn't offering to drop the price of my own landlord's liability policy, so again I don't see any reason to put any verbiage in a lease.
Again, I don't put any requirement into a lease that I can't enforce. If a tenant doesn't carry liability insurance, what the heck would I do about it-- evict them? I don't see why I'd care.
By the way, many landlords around here have a "No pets!" clause. Of course that's one of the most commonly violated terms of a lease. The tenants have to conform to federal/state/HOA laws on pets, sure, but those aren't my laws. All our tenant has to be ready to do is to pay for the wear & tear consequences of owning pets-- and we tell them in the lease that we'll charge for pet damage.
The upside of not having a "No pets!" clause is that we're "pet friendly". Tenants are willing to pay top dollar to live in a pet friendly place, and the extra rent far more than makes up for any putative damages that we might take out of the security deposit. "Pet friendly" is also a landlord code for "If you're going to bring a pet in here then we're not replacing the carpet until it's at least 10 years old"...