The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Reader Recommendations => Topic started by: Cool Friend on March 15, 2019, 07:42:36 AM
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A friend of mine had a lot of her stuff destroyed when a pipe in her apartment building burst and flooded her unit. Luckily she had renter's insurance. It got me thinking about my negligent/apathetic landlord and the age of the building I've been living in for the past 8 years and how maybe I should look into that? Naturally I have some questions:
1. Is renter's insurance worth it?
2. If yes, are there any decent, ethical companies you could recommend?
3. How does it work with roommates? Can I cover their stuff under my policy (the lease is in my name only)?
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Many landlords require that you have renters liability insurance, which is especially important if you have a dog or your place is aging or not properly repaired. Do you have enough funds to cover replacement of property & temporary living quarters -- if not, you need renters insurance that includes this as well as liability.
If the lease is in your name, you get the insurance. Make sure the property coverage is large enough if you want to share the coverage cost with roommates. DS did this in college.
Just like auto insurance, shop around because the prices & coverage do vary. You can get a premium discount by combining the two from the same provider. Try Farmers, Geico, Progressive, State Farm. We're insured with Cincinnati (Capstone program). Most policies have an annual term, but you can cancel any time & get your unused portion refunded.
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A friend of mine had a lot of her stuff destroyed when a pipe in her apartment building burst and flooded her unit. Luckily she had renter's insurance. It got me thinking about my negligent/apathetic landlord and the age of the building I've been living in for the past 8 years and how maybe I should look into that? Naturally I have some questions:
1. Is renter's insurance worth it?
2. If yes, are there any decent, ethical companies you could recommend?
3. How does it work with roommates? Can I cover their stuff under my policy (the lease is in my name only)?
1. YES
2. I haven't used renter's insurance in a long time, so I can't recommend it but I remember it cost me only $50 which is why it's worth it. A coworker of mine along with her significant other lost all of their belongings in a fire. She had renter's insurance, he did not.
3. As I understand it, each person takes a policy and it covers their own things. Again, it's been a while so hopefully someone can confirm this as well.
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Thanks!
I shopped around and got a good policy with Lemonade, which is what my aforementioned friend recommended. I like their business structure and they gave me a good rate! My policy won't cover my roommates' stuff, but that's not a deal-breaker.
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Generally, insurance only makes sense if you cannot comfortably cover a loss using your savings.
> If you have $20k worth of stuff in your apartment, and 200k in the bank, even if a fire wipes out everything you own, you're going to be okay.
> If you have $20k worth of stuff in your apartment, but only 2k in the bank, you need insurance because a total loss would be much more difficult to recover from financially.