First Apartment? Don’t Forget Insurance

Have you recently moved into your first apartment? If so, you probably have a lot of new responsibilities. As a first-time renter, you have the new burden of a property to maintain, bills to pay and possessions to protect. It can be overwhelming, particularly when you consider the prospect of something or someone damaging your home. This is where a renters insurance policy can come in handy.

What’s Renters Insurance?

Many young people don’t think about getting insurance when they get their first property. However, it’s a critical piece of protection. So critical, in fact, that many landlords require renters to carry these policies.

Renters insurance helps protect a renter’s financial interests and liabilities. Usually, it contains a couple of types of protection.

• Possessions Coverage: You don’t own the home you live in. You only lease it from the owner. Therefore, you don’t need to insure the apartment’s structure itself. However, you still own items such as your furniture, clothing and electronics. Possessions coverage can help you repair or replace these items following damaging incidents.
• Liability Insurance: By moving into your home, you bring risks with you. These are liabilities. There’s always a chance you could harm someone else or damage their property. For example, a friend might fall in your bathroom and require medical treatment. Or, you might damage a friend’s cell phone when you knock it off a table by accident. In these cases, liability insurance can help you compensate the harmed party.

Renters should therefore pay close attention to the process of procuring renters insurance.

• Name an approximate value of the personal items in your home. This estimate will set the maximum limit on how much money you can get for damaged property.
• Choose liability limits that are enough to cover any severe damage you might cause. Often, your landlord will require you to get minimum levels of liability insurance. Get coverage that at least meets their requirements.

Keep in mind, most renters insurance policies will contain exclusions and limits. Your policy limits likely won’t cover every personal item of liability on the property. Work with your ACF Insurance agent on the best ways to protect the greatest number of your assets.