Insurance Coverage for Renters With Negligent Landlords

As a young, inexperienced renter, you may think that your landlord has a home insurance policy that will protect you, and that that coverage will pay the cost to repair any damage to your property. That is not the case at all. The insurance coverage that a landlord has extends to the building's structure and the common areas around the building.

Unless you have renters insurance, nothing will protect your property from any type of personal property damage.

Different states have different regulations regarding tenant and landlord rights. Additionally, local housing codes dictate the policy repair requirements to which landlords must adhere. It is pretty reasonable to assume, however, that a landlord cannot be negligent when it comes to things like electrical wiring, hot and cold water, heat and air conditioning, a solid roof, decent plumbing and working appliances.

Why You Need Renter's Insurance

If there are undisclosed problems in the building your apartment is in, anything could happen. Since landlords are only required to have insurance that covers the physical structure and liability for injury that occurs in common areas, any type of catastrophic situation could destroy the entire apartment building, including all of your possessions.

In any of these scenarios, in addition to losing all of your possessions, you'd be homeless. The advantage to having renter's insurance is that it could pay for temporary housing costs.

Liability Insurance Coverage Within a Renter's Insurance Policy

As a renter, your coverage isn't limited to major disasters. A leak in a water pipe might not cause significant damage immediately, but over time, the leak could get bigger, and ultimately cause severe damage to some of your property.

What would happen if inadequate wiring in the apartment caused a blow out on your expensive flat screen television or laptop computer? Unless you have good renter's insurance with replacement cost coverage, your investment would be totally lost.

There are many ways that a renter can benefit from having liability insurance coverage as a part of their renter's insurance policy. In all likelihood, your lease is very clear in laying out exactly what the landlord is required to do in terms of maintaining the apartment. If a guest is hurt in your apartment, your liability coverage would pay their medical costs.

If you overload power strips to the point where sparks cause a fire that damages both your apartment and the apartments on either side of you, the liability policy repair portion of your renter's insurance would cover the damage you caused.

While renter's insurance won't pay for repairs your landlord fails to do, you can be rest assured that by having a policy that provides you with adequate coverage, that if the landlord's failure to do those repairs causes damage or total destruction to your property, your insurance would reimburse you for the cost of repairing the damage.

In order to protect yourself and your belongings in the house, you need to have sufficient coverages on your home/renters policy. And in order to find out what are the coverages that are sufficient for you & how much insurance will cost, you can compare quotes online on this website and find the difference for yourself.