Renters insurance, like so many insurance policies, doesn’t seem necessary until it’s extremely necessary. Luckily, renters insurance is fairly cheap and can easily be added to your monthly expenses without making too much of a dent into your rainy-day funds. Here’s how to start the process of choosing an insurance policy and our top picks for the best renters insurance companies.
What to Consider When Choosing a Renters Insurance Policy
Before you choose a renter’s insurance company, you should consider what kind of coverage you want and make your selection based on your needs.
Premium Cost: Of course you care about the cost, but even the best renters insurance companies will only run you around $10-$20 per month. When renters realize that their insurance costs can be this small, they are more likely to make the effort to get the insurance they need. After all, you share the responsibility for caring for your space with all the other tenants in the building, and if one of them does something that harms the building, it could easily damage your possessions as well.
Deductible: It can be tempting to get a low deductible on your insurance, meaning that even if you only lose $250 or $500 of valued possessions, your insurance will kick in and pay. However, it’s best to aim for a high deductible: it reduces your premium cost, and any event that merits using your renter insurance is probably going to result in far more than $1000 in damage. Choose based on your own needs, but definitely consider the higher-end deductible policies.
Personal Property Coverage: Personal property coverage can reimburse you at different levels depending on your choices. For instance, if all your home items are quite old, typical coverage will give you the reimbursement for the value of those items, which probably won’t be enough to get exact replicas unless you can find a perfect 10-year-old overstuffed couch. However, a higher level of coverage reimburses at a calculated replacement value, which gives you more money with the expectation that it will cost a little more than the value of the items to replace them. Remember to look into what a standard insurance policy doesn’t cover so you can add on those additional protections.
Liability Coverage: Liability helps you out in the case of a lawsuit or accidental injury: if someone breaks their arm in your apartment, this insurance can keep you from getting stuck with a nasty lawsuit just to get those medical expenses covered. Other, somewhat surprising aspects are covered: if your pets injure someone or if your children injure someone. Regardless, it protects you when an accident happens and you don’t want to be left with the payments.
Additional Living Expenses Coverage: While often standard, this coverage is very helpful. In the event of a fire or another tragedy that results in not being able to inhabit your rental home immediately, additional living expenses coverage helps you find a temporary living situation while your home is restored.
6 Best Renters Insurance Companies
While there is no one renters insurance company or policy that is perfect for everyone, there are many helpful qualities that make these 6 companies among the best renters insurance companies around.
- Trusted Choice IIA – Trusted Choice features independent insurance agents who work with a range of companies, which sometimes means they can get good deals while working with smaller firms than you might not find on your own. They also have a good reputation for being fair, personable, and easy to use on review sites online.
- Allstate – With an unusually good tool for getting a quote on your rental insurance, Allstate is a good place to start and to establish a baseline for potential coverage costs. Their Allstate Digital Locker is a smart way to chronicle everything in your home so that, in the case of an accident or fire, you can demonstrate all the value of items in your home, with easy to access photographs and serial numbers. As an added bonus, you can bundle your car and renters insurance together for a discounted rate.
- American Family – American Family has a reputation for low complaints and low premiums. They offer similar coverages to their competitors, but have additional options, like protection against identity theft and extra coverage for home offices in your home or apartment.
- State Farm – While known most for its car insurance, State Farm offers rental insurance that is competitive and makes up a substantial share of the market. Their mobile app is well-developed and has many tools to make understanding and accessing your coverage easy should you ever need it. Similar to Allstate, bundling your car insurance and renters insurance also unlocks discounted rates.
- Liberty Mutual – Liberty Mutual has a few particularly nice discounts available, like the claims-free discount for those who don’t use their insurance for more than 5 years. Stable rental situations rarely need a claim, so you can get your insurance down to a very reasonable level while still having the coverages you need. This feature alone helped it make our list of the best renters insurance companies.
- Lemonade – Lemonade is a new kind of renters insurance. Lemonade is powered by artificial intelligence – they replace brokers and bureaucracy with bots and machine learning to make insurance fast and affordable. Their app lets you sign up for a policy in just 90 seconds and allows you to easily customize your levels of coverage. Another unique aspect of Lemonade is their Giveback program: a portion of the money not paid in claims gets donated to non-profits chosen by its policyholders. On top of all that, Lemonade’s insurance policies are extremely affordable and start from only $5/month.
Regardless of which of the best renters insurance companies you choose, remember that the most important step is to go through the work it takes to start a policy and keep making payments on it each month. If you’re looking for ways to lower your existing renters insurance policy, check out our post that can help you do so.
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