Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Renter's Insurance and Your Excuses!


Odds are pretty good that if you rent your home or apartment, you don’t have any coverage for your belongings or personal liability coverage. In the United States it is believed that nearly 65% of renters do not have coverage for their belongings or liability protection. 

Why don’t you have renter’s insurance? This is because at some point you made a decision that you didn’t need this coverage or your insurance agent didn’t tell you why this coverage is important.  So why didn’t you get renter’s insurance? Here are some of the worst excuses:

- “It is too expensive!”

- “I don’t have anything valuable, so I don’t need insurance.”

- “My landlord has insurance, therefore I have coverage.”

- “My roommate has insurance, so if anything happens I will just submit a claim under their policy.” 

All of your excuses are CRAP. Don’t believe me? Let me tell you why:

“It is too expensive!” – Renter’s insurance is one of the least expensive insurance products to purchase. A typical policy can range from $12-$25 a month depending on the coverage amount you decide on, among other factors. In most cases by applying the multipolicy discount to your auto insurance policy you can greatly reduce the expense of your auto insurance to the point were your renter’s insurance pays for itself. 

 ”I don’t have anything valuable, so I don’t need insurance.” – So you don’t have anything of value? Walk to your bedroom, open your closet door, and then tally up all of your shirts/pants/shoes alone. Say you have 100 articles of clothing, imagine that in order to replace them it is $50 a piece. Your closet alone is worth $5,000. If a loss occurs, do you have $5,000 sitting around just to buy new clothes? Remember, you haven’t even calculated how much value you have in electronics, furniture, or kitchen supplies yet. 

“My landlord has insurance, therefore I have coverage.”- A major misconception among renters all over the US. Your landlord has coverage for their interest in the home and only their interest. There is $0 worth of coverage for your stuff under their policy.

 ”My roommate has insurance, so if anything happens I will just submit a claim under their policy.” – A renter’s insurance policy requires the policy owner to have a financial interest in the items they’re insuring. Since you bought the items, your roommate has a 0% financial interest in them. So if a loss were to happen there would be no coverage for your stuff. Think you can pull a fast one and attempt to submit a claim under their policy? Insurance fraud is a crime and an insurance adjuster is trained to detect fraudulent activity. 

Still have a reason for not purchasing renter’s insurance? Leave a comment.

No longer have an excuse? Request a quote! 

No comments:

Post a Comment