Geraldine A.When a homeowner's house burns down, floods, or becomes uninhabitable from a covered loss, their insurance policy almost always covers their housing while the home is repaired or rebuilt. That coverage is called Additional Living Expense, or ALE. The housing has to come from somewhere. Most landlords who own furnished or partially furnished mid-term properties are already in the supply chain that covers it, and most do not know it.
This is what ALE means, how the placements actually happen, why the economics tend to favor the landlord, and how to position a property to receive ALE inquiries.
What ALE is
ALE is a coverage clause inside almost every standard homeowner's insurance policy in the United States. It pays the policyholder's reasonable additional living expenses while their primary residence is uninhabitable due to a covered loss. The most common covered losses are fire, smoke damage, water damage from a burst pipe or storm, mold remediation that requires the family to leave the property, and structural damage from severe weather.
ALE typically covers the difference between the family's normal cost of living and what they actually have to spend while displaced. In housing terms, that means the policy pays the rent on a comparable property for the duration of the rebuild, minus the family's normal mortgage or rent (which they keep paying or have suspended). For most families, this nets out to the insurance carrier paying the full rent on a furnished mid-term rental for the length of the displacement.
The duration is variable. A small kitchen fire might displace a family for six weeks while contractors finish the work. A major water-damage rebuild might last six to nine months. Total losses, where the home is rebuilt from the foundation, regularly run 12 to 18 months. The mid-term rental window of 30 days to 12 months is exactly the duration ALE placements occupy.
How the placement actually happens
ALE placements rarely come directly from the displaced family. The chain is structured.
When a covered loss happens, the family files a claim with their insurance carrier. The carrier assigns an adjuster who confirms the loss is covered and the property is uninhabitable. The carrier then engages an ALE coordinator, sometimes in-house, more often a third-party housing-placement company, to find the family a property that meets the policy's "comparable" standard (similar bedroom count, similar location, similar furnishing level to the original home). The coordinator searches their network of furnished mid-term inventory, presents two or three options to the family, and the family picks one. The coordinator handles the lease and the payment to the landlord. The landlord rarely meets the family before move-in.
This is the supply chain that has run on Streamlined Stay Solutions, our institutional sister, for years. Streamlined Stay has placed more than 4,000 ALE families across the United States, alongside active veteran housing and firefighter housing contracts on the government side. The operating model is well-developed and well-documented.
Furnished Unfurnished is the direct-listing front of that operation. The marketplace is open to professional tenants of every category, and ALE families are one of the largest and most reliable categories within that population.
Why the economics favor the landlord
ALE placements have three properties that make them the most predictable mid-term tenancies a landlord can host: