A determination of whether property is in the care, custody, or control of the insured will always be very fact-specific, and may vary depending on jurisdiction. Generally speaking, however, the care, custody or control exclusion applies only in those situations where the insured has actual care, custody, or control of the property. Typically, some sort of bailee-bailor relationship will need to exist for the exclusion to apply.

Courts have held that where the insured leases locked storage space to a third party, he or she does not have care, custody, and control over the property of the third party within the storage space. This was because the insured had no proprietary interest in and derived no monetary benefit from property stored (even if the insured did receive benefit from lease of storage space itself).

Similarly in the situation you describe, the landlord has no interest in the property. Further, through the explicit terms of the agreement, the parties demonstrated a mutual understanding that the landlord bears no responsibility for the property. That the tenant can remove his property at any time without contacting the landlord and that the landlord receives no compensation for allowing the tenant to store the property further demonstrate why the exclusion would not apply here.