Cheap Renters Insurance

If you are a renter like me, then cheap renters insurance is a must have expense.  Imagine this scenario, you come home one day and there’s water everywhere.  You look up and it appears that water is leaking from your ceiling and covering all of your appliances.  It turns out that the neighbor had turned on his bathtub and forgot to turn it off and flooded his bathroom floor.  Most of your electronics, such as your computer, flat screen television, and your expensive painting where all damaged by the water.  You try to get the apartment to pay the fees but the landlord says in the contract that they are not liable for your personal property and that it is directly stipulated in the contract that you signed your lease.  This means that none of your assets can be paid by and you are basically out of luck.  Also, renters insurance can cover personal injury to people that are in your house.  For example, say a guest in your house hurts themselves in your house due to an accident that occurred on your property.  Let’s say that the guest in your house is seriously injured and requires medical attention.  After your guest gets medical attention, he decides that it’s a good idea to sue you for damages based on what occurred on your property.  If you do get sued and the prosecutor wins, then you will have to pay those damages out of pocket, unless you have renters insurance.  This is one of those incidence that you do not want to happen, but could happen. 

Some common misconceptions of renters insurance are that it’s very expensive, that it’s covered by your renters lease, that your assets aren’t enough to be covered by cheap renters insurance, and that you aren’t liable for damages caused to others while they are in your house.  However, these are all things that are misconstrued and need to be cleared up.  First of all, you can check for cheap renters insurance online and verify that it doesn’t cost much to rent insurance.  I got a cheap renters insurance quote for around $15 a month.  That’s $15 a month to have the reassurance that my assets are covered if they were damaged by fire, or stolen.  Landlords do not insure renter’s property in case of damages caused by flooding or fire, all the landlord covers are damages to the actual apartment itself.  Also, if someone is hurt in your apartment, you will be responsible for the damages to that person if they decide to recover costs by taking you to court.  All of your assets and earnings are up for grabs if you do not have insurance and are liable for damages caused to others while they are on your property.  Even though you do not own that many assets, even small things will start adding up.  Plus, just like cheap car insurance, you can put limits on your policy to insure only that amount that you have.  This way you can receive adequate coverage without over paying on your premium. 

Here are some things you need to know about your renter’s insurance policy.  Just like car insurance limits, renter’s insurance policies have limits as well.  There are also special category limits which have maximum amounts for specific items that you own.  The most important for anyone that wants to insure their belongings is to determine whether they want the actual cash value or the replacement cost value.  This is pretty self explanatory as some costs such as electronics which might have been worth thousands a few years ago are now worth a couple hundred bucks today.  Family liability renters insurance will provide compensation to an injured party that was caused by negligence on your part.  This will allow you to not be financially ruined if such things happened on your property. 

Besides the things listed, you can purchase more coverage for items that are of higher value and are not covered by the limits in your basic policy.  Some discounts that you might receive to get the cheapest renters insurance is purchasing your cheap auto insurance policy, life insurance, and renters insurance all together.  Typically you will be able to save about ten to fifteen percent when you package all your insurance policies with one insurance broker.  Also, the older you are, the more you will be able to save as retired people and older people typically get a larger discount than a college student would.  Protecting your assets by using security systems will allow you to receive an additional discount depending on what type of system you have in your house.