You betcha! The good news is, Renter’s Insurance is pretty affordable. You’re probably going to see rates somewhere in the range of $175 to $225 a year. Here’s a LINK to an ad for Allstate saying they have some for as low as $4 per month. That’s not too bad when you think how much you spent on your sofa or your art, or even just your clothes!
What if this happened to you? Who’d pay for damages?
Recently (March of 2016) I helped a Landlord and Tenant work through a situation where the hot water heater failed in a garden level apartment. When a water heater fails, all the water in the tank just goes EVERYWHERE! There was about an inch of water in two or three rooms of the apartment. Just imagine what that will do to your furniture legs, any electronics on the floor, your purse or phone if you had them on the floor by your bed…what a mess!!
While we had disaster recovery on site in hours of being notified of the situation, water is very destructive and hard to clean up. The professionals had to pull all the wet carpet out, and run huge vacuum’s to pull water out, and set up big, LOUD fans for a couple days…what a mess.
The Tenant had no insurance. She was NOT happy to learn the Landlord’s insurance didn’t cover her damages.
What if your apartment becomes unlivable for a period of time? In the Great Flood of Water Heater above, Renters Insurance could have helped pay for time at a hotel, or the extra cost of buying food out while the apartment wasn’t livable. The Landlord in our story had the ability to put our Tenant up at a hotel, and even found a hotel where they would take her dog (a Boxer/Pitbull type) for four days. Otherwise the Tenant was in the situation where her dog would have to stay in her car for 8 hours while the Tenant worked her shift.
Many renters think their stuff isn’t worth insuring, that they don’t have any “good” stuff or that they just don’t have enough of it. But what if you suddenly had to go buy all NEW stuff! Try this. Think of a room in your house and do a mental or actual inventory of what’s in the room. If you’re thinking of your living room, you probably have some furniture like a couch or chair, a rug, maybe a couple lamps, bookshelves, curtains/blinds, and your personal stuff. Is your iPad, laptop, iPod, watch, phone or any other item in that room?
If you’re just out of college and living in a fully furnished apartment, it may be a reasonable risk to go without. If you’re renting a nice place with some pieces and bits and bobs you’ve started to collect along the way, it might be time to think again!
Here’s some local insurance agencies that might be able to help:
USAA Renters Insurance