5 Renter's Insurance Coverages With Examples of How They Work

For renters, insurance isn't always a top priority, in fact it may rank up there with getting alien abduction insurance for some people. It seems like an extra cost that doesn't make a lot of sense especially if you just finished paying for arranging your move. By the time you get settled in, it is easy to forget about the insurance. There are many reasons a renters insurance policy is an important part of protecting your financial security here are renter insurance coverage examples and details about what is covered by renters insurance to help you understand if it is worth it.  

Why Is Renters Insurance Important for You?

The basic coverages for renters insurance are:

Your contents or personal belongings at home

Contents or personal belongings away from home 

Your Personal Liability (which works the same way as liability in homeowner insurance)  

Medical Payments to Others

Additional Living Expenses — the actual loss you end up paying for a place to live while your insured apartment is being repaired or is unlivable due to a claim Read about John and how this coverage helped him maintain his independence in point number 5.

How Renters Insurance Insures Personal Property and Other Stuff?

If you rent an apartment or condo, renters insurance is most important for you because you are placing all the things that you most value in one place. Your contents coverage will include things like your mobile devices, electronics, your bike, your favorite jeans, or just about anything from your shoes to dishes and furniture. It will cover everything you own (subject to special limits of the policy of course).

Some people underestimate the value of their contents or things they have in their home, but even with a minimalist lifestyle, you will have certain special items and things, including those related to hobbies or collections that you've taken the time to be selective about having.

How Much Should Renter's Insurance Cost?

In case you're wondering how much renters insurance costs, we've also put together the information you need at the end of this article and why you'll want to shop around, in general, you can expect to pay about $15-20 a month for basic starters rental insurance. 

Imagine you are sitting in your living room watching a movie and all of a sudden you hear dripping water. You head over to the faucet in your kitchen to see if maybe you left the tap open. No such luck. You listen to hear where the noise is coming from, and as you walk towards your living room, all of a sudden a piece of your ceiling cracks open and water starts pouring in, right over your TV and all over all your electronics. You grab your cell phone before the water reaches it and call your landlord who isn't answering the phone. You run upstairs to your neighbor's and no one is answering. You finally decide you should call your insurance to find out what to do. They get an emergency water damage control team over to help you.

Because you have renters insurance:

They will help with the cleanup,

They will pay for your additional costs of living since your apartment is unlivable due to the extensive damage,

They will take care of compensating your loss or damage to your tv and personal property damaged in the incident

Things that happen to your things: Your cell phone, your furniture, your laptop, basically almost anything that's movable that you own in your rented apartment and condo

Things that may happen to you because someone is holding you responsible for something like a personal injury or property damage — read an example of this in point number 4 below.

Things that happen because of a covered loss. Like having to find a new place to live because of a fire or bathtub incident, and then having to pay additional costs above and beyond your normal costs of living.

Without renters insurance, you would have been left on your own to deal with all of it. In addition, you would have probably been in a dispute with your neighbor or landlord trying to find someone to compensate for your loss.

With an insurance policy, you've got yourself covered and if you have replacement insurance, you'll even end up with a new TV and all that other stuff that got damaged could be fully replaced.

When all is said and done, you ask your insurance what happened, why did the water come down like that? Apparently, the neighbor's toddler had turned on the bath and they hadn't noticed, they went out to run an errand and within less than an hour your ceiling was coming down.

This is a situation beyond your control that there is nothing you could have ever done to predict it. Maybe toddlers don't turn baths on all the time, but water damage claims are major problems and can happen easily when you live in buildings where you can't control the actions of others or the repairs in the building.

Renters Insurance Will Protect You From Three Kinds of Things:

A renter's insurance policy will provide coverage for specified perils on your policy which will list the risks you are covered for, or may also provide coverage for all risks. An open perils or all-risk policy will cover you for almost anything you can think of, as long as it is not excluded.

You can choose if you want a named perils policy or an all-risk policy based on your budget and needs. It is about perils and risks covered on an insurance policy here.

If someone holds you responsible for an injury on your rented premises, your rental insurance will cover your costs of defense, and also offers interesting coverages like voluntary medical payments. It is important to have health insurance for any individual and you can check your eligibility for catastrophic health insurance pa and explore best plans for you.