Insurance for your property is by far the most important product you can have to protect your wallet in times of catastrophe, but most people fail to add the coverage, and truthfully; it’s not something that is required by the state, so you do not get offered the coverage everytime, nor do you really want to add another bill to your account.
Let me correct a common mistake that others (not agents) are telling you about Property insurance. Property insurance is confused often with Dwelling, Renters, and Homeowner insurance, and I can understand, they all seem by definition as the same, but so does stealing, theft, and burglary.
So what is Property insurance? It’s actually a coverage that is apart of an insurance contract that protects what you own within a structure. Or in laments terms, if I were to rip off your roof from your home and flip the house upside down everything that falls out of your home is Property. Since this forum is talking about Property only, I am going to explain the product in Renters insurance only, and I want you to be aware that in most cases it can apply to Homeowner and Dwelling coverage’s as-well, but differences do exist because of the underlying need of people who own homes have different requirements than people renting.
In the Renter’s insurance contract property plays a vital role in the policy, it is in essence the insurance that covers all the loose items in you living area that is not attached to the apartment or home your living in. Why it is vital? I could have easily used the word important or of great significance, but vital is the right word because when your items are on fire burning away to ash, you can see right now why Property insurance is vital. As all insurance contracts are made, the purpose of Property insurance is to bring you back to the way you were before the loss. So if a fire takes your property away from you, then the insurance company has a vested interest in giving you back you life again. Before you go and say that you wouldn’t need it because you do not have that much stuff, I ask you only one question, “remember when you bought all the items you needed for the bathroom the first time?” You have to remember that you own much more than you think, a good example is what you wear casually; so lets use jeans, the comfy shirt, the underwear, the socks, and the shoes combo. This simple outdated combo of clothing when it was bought new was probably at $70 dollars or more easy. Do
you have $70 dollars to give me free? No. Well do you want to spend that much again for something that you have owned before? No. That is what Property insurance is designed to protect, its there to help re-buy what was lost in the first place.
The major stigma of the contract is expense, and I can relate to anyone that had to grow up and keep a strict budget on certain items. With a little irony, these same individuals are the ones that would best profit from the Property coverage offered from Renters insurance.
So when you involve yourself and ask an insurer about the Property coverage, you need to know a few key details. You will notice that some companies offer you premiums that are different and can really vary in one way or the other. The main reason for this variation is based truly on rating of the area, the company providing the insurance, and most important what the insurance company will provide in a loss. Remember that Property is a part of a contract, so it makes sense that the company wants you to use the policy when something serious like a catastrophic fire occurs to your items that you are insuring. Other perils like lightning, theft, and vandalism are usually named on the contract for most policies to cover what you own. As a matter of fact the way the Renters Policy will state its provision of insurance is by calling what it will insure for as “Named Perils,” so if anything falls out of the Named Perils of a contract, they do not cover the loss.
Its important to know that all insurance companies have benefits and negatives when it comes to coverage’s, most will be quite similar but you would want to make sure that you were getting coverage’s for perils that really are obviously needed. For instance if you rented a condo next to a beach, you would want to make sure that flood was available as an endorsement, and you also would like to know what the policy will not cover even if their was a peril involved. It’s common for instance that when lightning strikes and hits the wiring of your home, if you do not have a surge protector on your t.v. they will deny your claim.
The last thing I want to advise upon you is that Property Coverage is usually inexpensive, most policies start at 5 thousand dollars, and should cost as much as a happy meal a month if you make it a bare minimum policy. I can only ask that you should choose a reputable insurer, and the agent will explain what you need based on what you have.