Renters Insurance

Recently, my wife and I sold our house and moved across the country. It’s pretty cool. I find that not owning a home has helped my stress levels drop well below their pre-sale levels. But one thing that did bother me was that when we owned a home, it was insured. Since we rent now we don’t have to worry about carrying insurance on the dwelling in which we live.

But the benefit of homeowners’ insurance goes well beyond replacing the home in the event of fire or other damage. What about all your personal belongings whose demise would be coincident with that of your house? That’s covered by a homeowners’ policy. Also covered are liability claims. If someone is in your house and they are suddenly struck in the head by a falling chandelier, their medical costs can be covered under your homeowners’ policy.

Now, since we’re renting we don’t have the option to buy homeowners’ insurance to cover the loss of our personal belongings or any liability coverage. This is one point that caused my stress level to inch back up over the past few months. But that all changed tonight. We met with an insurance agent in our new town and were able to insure all our personal belongings up to $50,000 for about ten dollars a month. And this policy also includes $100,000 of liability coverage. It was easy to apply for, costs next to nothing, and protects us in the event of the unplanned accident or tragedy.

It is true that you can’t buy happiness. But sometimesyou can purchase a bit of peace of mind, and in the case of renters’ insurance it can be bought for pennies on the dollar. If you rent and you don’t have insurance, I urge you to get coverage as soon as you can. It may just save you a lot of heartache down the line.