An apartment building went up in flames, and everything inside it got destroyed. Fortunately, no one died in this particular fire. Some of the tenants were new graduates, who lost all their possessions in the fire. This is exactly the type of situation that renters insurance is designed for.
There are a lot of things to think about immediately after a person graduates from college. Typically, young adults who just earned their degree are saddled with a big student loan debt. It can be hard to come up with enough money to pay rent, and buy groceries, when a person is just starting out. It isn’t unusual for young adults to decide not to get a renters insurance policy.
Renters insurance coverage provides people with some financial protection in case something bad happens. There is a common misconception that if a person’s landlord has insurance on the property that it means the tenants don’t need to buy their own form of insurance. This is not true! The landlord’s insurance policy won’t cover damage to the property owned by a tenant at all. That policy is only going to cover damages to the actual structure.
Why does a person need renters insurance? There are many reasons. It will cover the replacement of the policyholders stuff if someone breaks in and steals it. It includes a liability portion that is important to have in case someone comes to your apartment and becomes injured. Your renters insurance will cover the medical bills that are generated by that injured person. It can also help the policyholder in case the injured person sues him or her in regards to the injury.
I read a news article today that serves as a vivid example of another good reason to get renters insurance. There was a fire in an apartment building in San Francisco, California. There were a total of 37 tenants who had rented apartments there. No one died, but one person did suffer from smoke inhalation, and three firefighters were injured when a staircase collapsed.
Four of the tenants were new graduates. The four young adults, who were in their early twenties, lost nearly all of their possessions in the fire. The article didn’t say if they had renters insurance, but I hope that they did. Otherwise, they are going to have to replace all of their stuff on their own, without any financial help from an insurance company.
Image by Ronnie Macdonald on Flickr