Renters insurance

Jnbmom · ‎09-25-2018

Need some advice as I am clueless. My daughter rents a house at college with 5 others girls. In the lease it states they must have renters insurance, in the beginning they divided who was to do what. Well apparently the girl who was supposed to do this did not 😠So I went online and got renters insurance through my car insurance comoany. Now it's in my name and my daughters.

Do they all have to get their own policies? One girl stated she has her own already. Sorry I know nothing about this.

EXP 780 EQ 791TU 795

Anonymous · ‎09-26-2018

@Anonymous wrote:
I don't know much about this but based upon what I understand, yes and no. One person should be sufficient for the purpose of fulfilling the terms of the lease. I'm guessing you've met any minimums of they required any.
In terms of coverage, some of their belongings might be covered (or not, read the fine print) but keep in mind, with computers, cell phones, TV's... The maximum amount that is covered adds up pretty quickly. My roommate and I added up our belongings to get an idea and it went over the maximum so we each have policies.
If they are expecting to have coverage for all their stuff, then they each need to get their own renter's insurance. That's great that you were able to get coverage for her. Hopefully the rest get coverage on their own too.

The reason that landlords require Renters policies has noting to do with the tenants' stuff. The landlord doesn't give a fig about your stuff. What they want is for each tenant to be covered for Personal Liability. That's the portion of the policy that pays for anything stupid the policyholder might do (like burn down the building) and be held responsible for. Were the landlord to discover that any of the tenants weren't covered, they would be within their rights to evict. Every tenant should have their own coverage.

Anonymous · ‎09-26-2018

Thank you, that was informative.

Sloedough · ‎09-27-2018

Renters insurance covers the renter. It protects them in case the landlord charges for any damages.

I require my renter to have insurance ever since he bought a toaster oven and put it in his room, then stacked empty pizza boxes on top of it. If he were to start a fire, I would have to pay for the repairs. Now I can have his insurance pay for the repairs.

I now require renters insurance for everybody on the lease.

So if a roommate causes damage to the property, her renters insurance won't cover it, because they insure the renter only.