Renters Contents Insurance: Do You Need It?
Renters Contents Insurance
When you think of insurance what do you think of? What do you ensure? Your house? Your car? Your life? These are some of the most valuable things we might have, and therefore are the first things we think of insuring against peril. However, if you are not a homeowner, you might consider one more thing.
If you are renting an apartment or home, the landlord should have (usually by law) a policy protecting their building, but this will not cover your personal belongings. Renters contents insurance is what you need to protect your things from peril. Although your clothing or furniture may not be as expensive as your car, when taken together, if you lost all of your things, the cost of replacing them would be very high.
Basic renters contents insurance will cover your possessions for 17 different types of peril such as lightning, fire, theft, vandalism, falling objects, smoke, aircraft and vehicles etc. What it will usually not cover is flood and earthquake. You will have to get a separate policy for those.
Remember that it can only take a few minutes for everything you have gradually been acquiring to be taken from you or destroyed. Then you are left with not only the sadness of losing them, but with the responsibility to replace them all. That is a financial burden that most of us are not in a position to bear without going deeply into debt. Renters content insurance alleviates this burden.
Every type of insurance is different, but one thing that is the same is that there are always factors that determine how much and what type of coverage and, of course, the cost of the insurance. Renters property insurance is no different.
Some of the things that will determine how much your insurance will costs are where you live, the insurance company you use and what your deductible is. If you have some very valuable items, your deductible will be higher, and if you live in a dangerous neighborhood your costs will also be higher for insurance.
Still, the cost of renters contents insurance is really quite affordable for almost everyone. And on top of helping you to replace your possessions (either using replacement cost or actual cash value, or ACV) you also get liability insurance, and additional living expenses, that will help pay for renting a new place, should the place you are renting become unlivable.
Of course renters property insurance, like other types of insurance, is considered an investment. You may never end up needing it, as with most types of insurance, but if you find yourself in a situation when you do, you will be endlessly grateful that you have it.