10/15/2025
Why should you invest in Renter's Insurance?
Renters insurance offers you financial help if bad things happen to you or your stuff. In exchange, you pay monthly or yearly payments to your insurance company. Many times your automobile insurance provider can help you with renters insurance as well.
What does renters insurance cover?
A typical renters insurance policy has three main coverage categories: personal property, temporary living expenses, and personal liability & medical bills.
Personal property
This type of coverage helps you recover the cost of lost or damaged valuables if various unpleasant or unexpected things happen. Think kitchen fires, lightning, windstorms, hail, smoke, vandalism, theft (at home or elsewhere), freezing, damage from aircraft or vehicles, and riots—to name a few.
Just keep in mind that if the stuff in your apartment belongs to your landlord, it isn’t covered under your policy.
And your renters insurance policy doesn’t extend to stuff that any roommates own; they’d have to get their own individual policies.
Temporary living expenses
If you’re required to leave your home in the aftermath of a covered event, most renters insurance policies will cover these and other expenses, possibly including cash you need to spend on food and laundry.
Personal liability & medical bills
Renters insurance coverage extends to instances in which someone gets hurt at your place in an accident—whether that means hospital bills or legal fees from a lawsuit. It also extends to certain damages that you may cause when you’re away from your home.
Insure your belongings
For an extra charge, you can apply to add Extra Coverage to jewelry as well as valuables like bikes, cameras, fine art, and musical instruments.
But I thought the landlord has insurance!
Your landlord’s policy covers the physical structure of their building and any furnishings/appliances the landlord may own inside, like the fridge or stove… but it doesn’t cover you or any damages that occur to your MacBook, digital camera, or single-speed bike.