You love your apartment—and your stuff. You want to keep your property and your belongings protected, just in case something unexpected happens. As you’re searching for the best renters insurance rates, you’re also exploring exactly what renters insurance covers and what it doesn’t.
This information is often hard to find. While renters insurance covers a broad swath of things, such as personal items, property damage, and personal liability, you might be surprised to learn what it doesn’t cover. Here are five of the most important things renters insurance does not cover.
High-Value Items
If you own art, jewelry, or high-end electronics, then get a separate insurance policy for those items. Basic renters insurance policies do not cover high-value possessions.
Your Roommate’s Possessions
As much as you might love your roommate, his or her possessions won’t be included on your renters insurance plan. Most policies do cover family members who live with you, but they do not cover unrelated people living in your home. To protect your roommates and their belongings, ask them to get their own renters insurance policy.
Undocumented Items
We all own things that we’ve forgotten to add to our insurance policy. Unfortunately, those items aren’t covered. To avoid this from happening to you, take a photographic inventory of the items in your home and send them to your insurance company. You may need to get certain expensive items appraised in order to get coverage for them.
Damage You Caused
Most renters insurance policies include some form of personal liability insurance. That means, should someone get injured at your home, your policy will pay for their medical expenses and, potentially, your legal fees.
What liability insurance won’t cover is damage or injury that you’ve caused. Specifically, if you’ve harmed another person, damaged your property, or broken your television, your renters insurance won’t cover the costs.
Damage from Natural Disasters
Do you live in area where earthquakes, hurricanes, wildfires, or flooding occurs seasonally? If so, it’s likely that your renters insurance policy does not cover damage due to these common natural disasters. You can get additional coverage for damage caused by natural disasters. Just talk to your insurance company.
How You Can Get Additional Coverage
Renters insurance, despite certain coverage omissions, still has many benefits. It offers personal liability protection in case your dog bites one of your dinner guests. It covers that furniture and collection of sporting goods you keep in your storage unit. It protects you financially, even while you travel, reimbursing you for the cost of lost, damaged, or stolen luggage. It even can replace the spoiled food in your refrigerator if it stops working.
If renters insurance isn’t enough to cover all of your possessions, then talk to your insurance company about getting what’s called “floater coverage.” You can shop for additional coverage for your jewelry, electronics, art, and other high-value items.
You also can get total replacement cost coverage. These more expensive plans protect you from loss, damage, and theft, reimbursing you for anything that’s in your apartment.
To compare renters insurance quotes, contact Freeway Insurance today at (800) 777-5620. Our customer service team is available to walk you through what your renters insurance covers, what it doesn’t, and how you can obtain additional coverage for your belongings.
