Home : Money & Time savers : Real estate : Renters Insurance

Renters Insurance. Tips and advice for Renters Insurance

If you do not own the home where you are living, you are renting. A renter lives in an apartment, in a condominium, or in a house. All types of housing developments have different sizes of homes rented for families of all sizes. The things that you move when you move from home to home are your things, your stuff. Renters insurance protects you from losing everything in the case of a fire, flood, theft, or a natural disaster. Without renters insurance you could lose everything when a home is destroyed. 

Renter’s insurance is almost always very inexpensive, providing you with coverage and protection against the unexpected. You do not have to pay a lot, for what things you do have; renters insurance is almost always very affordable based on the value of what you have in your home. The higher the value of your things, the more coverage you want to have, so your insurance may be slightly higher. 

What are the advantages of having renter’s insurance?

How are you going to decide how much renters insurance you should have? 

Think about how much furniture you have. How many clothes you have, televisions, and electronics. How often do you have company and what are the liabilities you are most worried about? 

What is would cost to replace everything that you own is the amount of coverage that you should be looking to purchase. You can raise it anytime in the future if you were to make a few big purchases, or if you had a few more children (meaning you now have even more things). 

You can get your insurance agent to give you a quote on what it is going to cost to replace the average families items in the home, or you can put a value dollar on it yourself. Just remember, making a listing of the major items and furniture that you own is a good start for the value of insurance coverage you should be looking for. 

When you are renting, you shouldn’t purchase insurance for less than eighty percent of what the value of your personal items are. While you are going to have some things in your home that you don’t care if you actually replace if the home should burn down or flood out, the price of replacing everything can be more expensive that what you might actually think. 

Replacement cost 

Purchasing renters insurance and liability insurance, you should consider paying a few extra dollars a year for replacement cost. Replacement cost is going to give you a check for the value of your item if you had to replace it. Often renters and homeowners alike purchase insurance but only for the dollar value of what the item was purchased for. 

Such as, if you bought a television three years ago for a hundred dollars, it would cost you a hundred twenty dollars to replace that same television now, but because you don’t have replacement insurance, you are only going to be given sixty dollars. The value of the television now after being used for three years. 

Find an agent you trust

Ask questions of your insurance agent if you are not sure what type of policy you are purchasing. Look for an insurance agent who is going to take the time to talk with you and for them to find out what your real needs are. If you approach an insurance agent and they are not giving you the personal attention you need, find another!

Just a Tip: 

When you are purchasing renters insurance, be sure to get extra coverage for highly valuable items such as jewelry, expensive computers, or custom created items that are irreplaceable. While this is going to raise your rates slightly, if something happened you will have no problem replacing high value items.