Today’s renters insurance question comes from Ryan, who has renters insurance in Alexandria, VA:
What Does Renters Insurance Cover?
What does renters insurance cover? Why is it important? What does having renters insurance coverage mean to you? Learn more from the experts at Effective Coverage and find out what renters insurance covers.
What Does Renters Insurance Cover?
Whether you got here by looking for California renters insurance, Colorado renters insurance, Texas renters insurance, or renters insurance anywhere else, you’re probably wondering what does renters insurance cover. The short answer is that renters insurance covers most of the things that are likely to go wrong or affect you in your life. The long answer comes in several parts. Let’s take a quick look at what does renters insurance cover and see how having a policy benefits you!
What Does Renters Insurance Cover: Personal Property
What does renters insurance cover? Personal property. That’s basically anything you have or possess with a few minor exceptions and sublimits for certain classes such as jewelry. Your personal property is protected by renters insurance against fire, theft, vandalism, and similar perils. Those perils generally include the most common things to happen to your personal property, regardless of fault, provided it’s not an intentional act. There’s generally a deductible on personal property coverage of $500 or lower. That’s there to keep the system working properly with claims that should be made getting paid quickly.
What Does Renters Insurance Cover: Loss Of Use
If a covered peril makes the residence premises unusable or unsafe to live in, renters insurance loss of use coverage kicks in. This protects you if you’re not able to use the apartment because of a covered peril. A great example would be if your neighbor had a small fire. There’s some smoke damage to your unit, and you need to stay in a hotel for a few days while the non-structural smoke damage is cleaned. Loss of use coverage kicks in to cover the hotel and additional living expenses resulting from the loss by covered peril. This coverage is usually about 30% of your personal property renters insurance coverage and may also have a time limit on it. The time limit based on the time a reasonable person would take to find other housing or get back into the old housing.
What Does Renters Insurance Cover: Liability
In the event that you unintentionally cause bodily injury or property damage to someone else through your negligence, liability coverage pays to make it right. In other words, if you could not reasonably have anticipated that your action would have caused that injury, renters insurance liability coverage is there to protect you.
Obviously, liability on renters insurance does exclude intentional acts that you know or reasonably should have known would cause harm. For example, let’s say you throw a snowball at a friend who is not looking and he drops to the ground after it hits him in the face. Liability can cover you for that. You had no reason to think he would have been injured by the snowball, but now you might be responsible for his injuries .
What Does Renters Insurance Cover: Medical Payments To Others
What is medical payments to others coverage on renters insurance? It’s a small (usually no more than $5,000) coverage for people who are injured on your premises or at your hand, where fault determination is not relevant. Because it’s no-fault, small injuries can be dealt with faster and with no admission of liability on your part.
Renters insurance can be a complicated subject, but it boils down to the coverage we’ve detailed above. For more information on what does renters insurance cover, please feel free to call Effective Coverage at (800)892-4308 or click above for an instant online renters insurance quote!