Your rental home itself belongs to your landlord. However, most of the possessions inside likely belong to you. It is these possessions that you could lose if damaging accidents occur in the home. That's why you need renters insurance. It usually contains coverage for your personally-owned belongings. How will it pay you? When will it not help you?
Possessions insurance for renters is often straightforward. However, it does have its limitations, so you need to make sure you get enough coverage when setting up your policy.
Understanding Your Possessions Insurance
Renters insurance protects the tenant's own financial interests in a rental property. Possessions coverage usually is among your policy's offerings. Simply put, it is the coverage that insures your belongings inside the rental space.
So, let's say a fire were to occur inside the rental. If your belongings were to get damaged, your policy can help you pay to replace them. The policy can replace such items as:
- Clothing
- Furniture
- Electronics
- Keepsakes
- Food
To get the right amount of coverage for these items, you will usually be asked by your insurer to approximate a value for your belongings. This value will help you select the policy's limit, the maximum amount it will pay in the event you make a claim for coverage.
Therefore, you will need at least enough possessions coverage to insure the full value of your most-essential belongings. However, that will involve a lot of attention to detail.
Tailoring Your Possessions Coverage
Your goal is to get as much money back from your lost belongings as possible. However, that might mean making some adjustments to your coverage.
- Some policies will only provide cash value compensation for certain damaged items. This means you might only be able to receive the depreciated value of an item, as it was at the time of a loss.
- To receive the full replacement cost of an item, you might be able to buy a renters insurance policy that pays the replacement cost value of each possession. However, these policies usually are more expensive.
- If you want to insure items of high values — such as computer systems, jewelry or art — you can often schedule these items on your policy. By scheduling the item, you can list its specific value, and can receive that compensation if you lose the item.
- You will likely have to pay a deductible for any possession losses.
To achieve the best coverage, talk to your Cloverleaf Insurance agent about how you need to verify the values of your belongings. Your agent can tell you if you need to have appraisals, or collect receipts to verify values.
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