Insurance For Non-Traditional Households And Relationships
There are aspects of life that don’t bend well to accommodate non-traditional households. Renters Insurance is not one of them. You might think of insurance companies as conservative and disinclined to accept risks that don’t fall into neat little boxes, but you’d be wrong. It’s entirely possible to get all types of coverage, including renters insurance, for non-traditional households of all varieties.
The trick to being protected is to work with an insurance provider who understands that your needs are different and who is willing to go the extra mile to make sure you can get the coverage you need for your particular situation. Read on to see a few examples of how Effective Coverage can help to protect all households, whatever the composition might be.
Just The Two Of Us
Let’s start with an easy one. If there are just two of you sharing a household, it’s quite simple to get covered. Renters insurance for unmarried couples, gay couples, or even couples who choose not to label themselves is as simple as letting your renters insurance expert know that you have someone else who should be listed on the policy as an additional named insured. Post-Obergefell, the few bumps in the road were experienced when trying to get insurance for non-traditional households have generally fallen away, no matter what the household composition may be.
Your insurance provider doesn’t care who the other person is, except insofar as they need some basic demographic data in order to list them on the policy. It’s straightforward, and your living arrangements are no one’s concern.
Just because the actuaries like to put things into nice, neat little boxes that are easily classified doesn’t mean your agent or underwriter does.
Insurance For More Than Two Adults In A Relationship Or Household
There are a couple of ways to handle insurance for non-traditional families with more than two adults. Whatever the makeup of your family, and however many people are in it, there is a policy for you. One of the things that people worry about when they are moving in together is insurance for polyamorous households. Poly families need coverage, too, and there are a couple of good ways to get it. Mostly, it depends on how things are set up and who’s on the deed, if any.
If you’ve got one or two people who own the home, and a third person will be moving in with them, there are two primary ways to handle insurance for poly families where not everyone owns the home. The simplest way, depending on who your insurance is with, may be to add the additional person or people with an endorsement. This gives them coverage under your homeowners policy, but it doesn’t make them a named insured. If there were to be a claim, the check would be written to the named insured or insureds, and it would be up to them to divide the money up appropriately.
The alternative option to insurance for non-traditional families where one or more people own the house, but not everyone, is to simply add on a renters policy for the individual(s) who don’t own the home. A renters insurance policy will cost very little, usually around fifteen dollars a month. It provides similar liability and personal property coverage to the homeowners policy, except it doesn’t cover the dwelling itself because the homeowners policy does.
One of the advantages of insuring a poly family with a combination of homeowners and renters policies based on ownership is that it’s easy to find yourself in a situation where some or all of you are responsible for a loss. If the homeowners have their policy and the other members of the family have renters policies, the liability coverage could respond at a higher level than if everyone were on one policy. If the homeowners policy has a $500,000 limit and the renters policy a $300,000 limit, a liability claim could in theory be paid up to $800,000 as well as defense costs for everyone involved. If everyone is responsible for the actions that gave rise to the loss, all of the policies could respond. Actual results will, of course, vary based on the type of negligence statutes in your state, the facts of the loss, and policy language, but this is often the best way to handle things.
It may also be possible to have one auto insurance policy for your poly family. Assuming that you all live together, it may be possible to list everyone and all vehicles on the same policy. There are a few companies out there that would balk at such a concept, or insist on treating the additional drivers as “roommates” regardless of the relationship you may have with them. Effective Coverage has access to policies that will accept all manner of family arrangements, regardless of the number of adults, and can offer expert guidance on how to best structure the policy to offer the most protection for all of you.
On the other hand, if your non-traditional family or polycule is organized as an LLC or a corporation to give everyone an equal level of ownership, you’d be well advised to sit down with a commercial insurance broker. That way you know that both individual and group interests are being protected. These household organizations are comparatively rare, and often involve ownership of assets that should be specifically discussed with a commercial broker. Remember that even if you’re not conducting business with the public, you’re still organized as a business and need to behave as one with regards to insurance.
Insurance For Non-Traditional Families With Multiple Residences
Maybe it’s not practical for everyone to move in together at the moment, or maybe that’s just not the way your relationship is organized, but you need to make sure that everyone is protected. If it’s just a case of two couples whose members each spend time with a counterpart in the other couple, there’s not really much of an issue as long as both residences are insured. You’ll actually be happy to know that, unlike many things in insurance and non-traditional lifestyles, this does not become more difficult as it scales up!
A and B are married and live together. B’s girlfriend has an apartment of her own, where B spends time. As long as everyone has the appropriate policy, all is right with the world.
If B also dates C, as long as everyone has the right policy, you still have no worries. You can see how this scales up to infinity… and beyond.
Your coverage travels with you as a person, it’s not limited to your residence. Your policy protects you wherever you spend the night, and it does so without judging the circumstances of your relationship. You’ll find that the vast majority of insurance agents and providers are not judgemental, either. Effective Coverage has for years been committed to helping everyone get the coverage they need, even when there isn’t a standard box to tick that explains the situation in an easy way.
It’s not difficult to get insurance for a polycule or non-traditional family, regardless of who makes up the household or family. Effective Coverage is happy to have an in-depth conversation about your specific needs and the people and things that you want to protect. Our insurance experts are available to help you get the coverage that your whole family deserves at an affordable price. Just call (800)892-4308 or click to get covered - whether you need renters insurance quotes online or coverage anywhere else!
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