Unfortunate Circumstances
I was recently talking with a friend who has an apartment in West Midtown not too far from mine. She lives in one of those newly developed loft complexes, which I normally assume those places have better security than most. Someone broke into her apartment last week in broad daylight while she was at work. Now my friend, lets call her Ellen, she is a self admitted geek with quite a nice collection of gadgets, toys, and electronics. Roughly $10,000 worth of equipment. None of Ellen’s neighbors reported robberies and no one says they saw anything suspicious like say, individuals moving out a 42″ Plasma HDTV among other expensive electronic equipment.
It’s very surreal to imagine losing all of your stuff. They even took her sheets, perhaps they were especially nice sheets, or maybe the crooks just needed something to help carry wires and cables.
Being the kind of person that I am, I started thinking about what she was left with.
“at least you’ve still got your MacBook Pro!”
to which she responded
“yep, still got the company’s laptop”.
Wow. My next thought was that of Renters Insurance, a wonderful service for those of us whom are still throwing our money away renting. Unfortunately, Ellen had no insurance to cover the items in her apartment before this incident, she does now, but she sure has a lot less stuff to insure than she did last week.
When I moved away from home at 18, one of the first things my mom told me to do was to sign up for Renters Insurance. Dealing with the bills of life for the first time, the idea of another bill on top of my rent, utilities, and newly acquired (first) cell phone seemed just plain crazy. I decided I would hold off on such luxuries until I got a good raise, after all, Renters Insurance must be at least $50 per month, maybe more, right? Apparently not.
As it turns out, Renters Insurance is damn cheap, especially compared to the other bills that I’ve already become accustomed to paying. I pay more for Netflix than I do for my $20,000 of Renters Insurance coverage each month. My renters’ is $12 per month, and that’s with a $100 deductible. To be honest, I don’t think I even have $20,000 worth of stuff, I made the policy that high because I wanted to aim high, especially considering how reasonable the monthly premiums are.
Sometimes my insurance company tries to talk me into raising my deductible to $500, they say it would lower my premiums by a whole $3 per month. No thanks Mr. Insurance man, it’s a lot easier to spare $100 than five times that amount.
If my friends are any indication, it seems it’s not all that common for someone to have a Renters Insurance policy. Perhaps it’s laziness, or perhaps ignorance. Everyone seems to have heard of Homeowners Insurance, probably because it’s required if you are financing your house, but a lot of people are unfamiliar with this mythical thing called Renters Insurance.
I implore you to overcome inertia and look into getting yourself some Renters Insurance. Sometimes you can get a Renters Insurance policy from the same company whom you may currently pay for car insurance, unfortunately this is not the case for Progressive customers as they do not offer this service.
Postface
Truth be told, the only reason I finally got myself a renters insurance policy is because of my Treo 650. I know that sounds completely ridiculous but it goes like this. I upgraded to the Treo 650 and switched to Cingular. I contacted Cingular to make sure that I add the handset insurance coverage to my account. They informed me that Cingular’s insurance handler does not cover the Treo 650, they had nothing to offer me. Infuriated with Cingular for not covering my Treo, I got myself a renters insurance policy to get my glorified phone some kind of coverage. I’d definitely say it’s worked out in my best interest, thanks a lot Cingular!