I own a large commercial building and the restaurant that occupies a small percentage as a whole. My insurance about $3500.00 a year now on the building only. I rented 26,000 sq ft. to a local church and was informed that my insurance would go up to $8500.00 per year because I rented to a church. I was told I could drop the coverage on the building to 960,000 from 1.5 million and the insurance would only go up to  $5800.00. What exactly is this all about??

It's not discrimination - it just merely saying that there is added risk.  Since a church would be considered a place for public use, the risk involved is higher because it's assuming that the church will be filled at maximum capacity at any given time so the possibility of a peril such as fire is increased.  Proportional to increased risk factor is the liability which have to increase as well - which caused your policy to go up.  This is just the most rudimental explanation I can give, please contact your agent or your insurance company and ask why and if they could explain why your policy has increased, where are the changes in coverage.

I also wonder if it could be related to the kinds of lawsuits that a church could be up against. I just recently blogged on the whole problem of sexual abuse cases in Protestant churches. Of course, there have also been high profile cases regarding sexual abuse in the Catholic church too. These kind of lawsuits can be very expensive for the church -- and for the insurer that provides liability insurance to the church.

However, I haven't found a comprehensive answer to this issue. Because the underwriting rules for insurers are "company confidential", no insurer will discuss them in detail.