It’s not your property they care about. They usually want this because it includes liability insurance if you damage their property or someone else’s, or your negligence causes harm to someone.

In Australia we have very strong consumer protection law, here it’s expected (by the bank usually) the landlord has at least a minimum “landlord insurance” that covers all that stuff.

For anything not covered, where a tenant does damage thats what the bond is for.

Renter insurance should be optional.

Actually I’m surprised that landlord insurance is not already occurring, imagine a building with 100 apartments, I’m sure the bank would ask the landlord to have a single cover over 100’s of little crappy policies.

If renter insurance is required by regulations, this is likley another good target for policy change.

Americans really do get screwed in so many ways.