Speaking of Insurance...

[AdamH]

I looked into renter's insurance the other day, and through my car insurance (TD Meloche Monnex) I can get a full year for $192, and they'll knock off 5% of my car insurance. That's only a savings of $42 dollars but that's almost two cases of beer.

The coverage is $20K which for us is fine since the sum total of all of our belongings is less than that, and there's a $500 deductible.

This seems reasonable enough but I wanted to hear from people who have it and have claimed with it what their experience was like. I know there have been a few fires in people's histories so I wondered if this helped them? Our building is an accident waiting to happen, so I don't know if our rate somehow reflects that or not.

[Velvet]

I had a similar policy to you and...well, when you need it, you need it. After the fire they gave me an emergency funds cheque, put me in a hotel for a month and then started sending cheques for stuff replacement.

Frankly, the reason I got insurance (after so many years of renting I finally got insurance less than two years before the fire) was because every once in a while I would drive home from out-of-town or whatever and I would wonder what the hell I would do if I got home and it wasn't there (mental residue from losing our house to fire at age 12), so I got the insurance just so I wouldn't have to worry - I didn't think I would actually use the insurance, but I did use it all the time to alleviate that little twinge of concern I would get now and then.

Insurance: Get It.

[AD]

I've wanted tenant's insurance for as long as I've lived away from home, but I have never been eligible because 'I live with more than one person who is not related to me.'

So if I had one roomate I would be eligible, but I've always had more than that and the insurance company's liability won't cover me.

I've looked into a few different places but no-one could help me, anyone know of somewhere that could?

And to answer the question, I would definitely get the insurance, you never know what could happen (fire, theft, flood). I've had things stolen and I just have to eat the loss. Sucks.

AD

[livingstoned]

careful not to underestimate the value of your belongings..... I have renters insurance and only 30grand coverage which after discussing with my roommate we are going to up that amount.

Now when I signed up I thought pfft I don't have a lot of new valuable furniture, stereo equipment, belongings etc.

HOWEVER figure just cd's, clothes, shoes for each season. Look at one complete outfit - winter season. Pants, shirt, sweater, shoes or boots, hat, mitts, undies, socks. Say 100 to 150 dollars (generous) for a winter coat. $50 for a wool sweater, $40 or 50 for pants depending on what kind of pants. Shirt 20 bucks, boots 100 bucks, mits/hat 20 (generous)

That's 300 - 400 dollars.

Then figure how much is in your closet. Lets say you have 6 pairs of jeans, couple of pairs of other type pants. Six pairs of (lets be generous) $60 pair of jeans = tax is over 400 bucks...for just 6 pair of pants.

k - then once you look at cd's I don't own a huge amount of cd's but some people do. Lets say you own 250 cd's. Lets round up to 20 bucks a pop....$5000.

SO add your cd collection, one winter outfit and 6 pairs of pants. You could be at 6000.00 that leaves you with only 14000 for the rest of your (just your) clothes, entire house or apt of furniture, and all the accessories.

Think about your kitchen...even being cheap and very careful about what you spend...accumulating over time you don't realize what you have. Entire set of pots = ?$

Cutlery = $?

toaster, microwave, coffee maker = $?

Dishes set

glasses set

wine/liquor if you have stuff on hand in the house,

wine glasses.

Food....ever move and have to buy a big groceries with all the little stuff too like, pepper, spices, ketchup, sugar, - that gets up to a couple of hundred if you wanna buy it all at once.

Bedding - couple of sheet sets

Towels....

Anyway It all adds up and you don't realize it. Plus the other thing to remember is...(in my case a lot of my furniture at the time of setting up my policy was given to me by family or whatever-so I thought its not worth anything blah blah blah) BUT if I had to go out and replace an entire house I wouldn't be getting a free couch, chair, freezer, kitchen table, computer desk - I'd have to buy all new (or even new used but if you loose everything you might as well go buy new stuff) So just estimate the cost of a living room these days, bedroom, kitchen and add it on to the rest...you'll be up over 20grand in no time.

Just something to think about. Sorry about the length here...yikes!

Hope that helps.

[AdamH]

AD - Not sure about that. It's just my girlfriend and me.

I was also told that if one of the registered contents in the apartment is stolen while I'm out of the apartment, I can claim for it. So if I'm driving my car and I've got the guitar in the back and it's stolen I can be reimbursed for its value (less the deductible I guess).

That's a goooood thing.

[livingstoned]

I've wanted tenant's insurance for as long as I've lived away from home, but I have never been eligible because 'I live with more than one person who is not related to me.'

So if I had one roomate I would be eligible, but I've always had more than that and the insurance company's liability won't cover me.

I've looked into a few different places but no-one could help me, anyone know of somewhere that could?

And to answer the question, I would definitely get the insurance, you never know what could happen (fire, theft, flood). I've had things stolen and I just have to eat the loss. Sucks.

AD

Try Colley, Borland and Vale 905 477-2720 but if not I did have renters insurance with someone when I lived with more than one person...might have been jonathan matthews insurance..through the dominion of canada...they explained to me the issue you are having but did give it to me.

[secondtube]

I was also told that if one of the registered contents in the apartment is stolen while I'm out of the apartment, I can claim for it. So if I'm driving my car and I've got the guitar in the back and it's stolen I can be reimbursed for its value (less the deductible I guess).

That's a goooood thing.

Yep, contents coverage on most things are world wide. Some have limits of coverage, other items dont...depends on what it is....

[SevenSeasJim]

shoes for each season.

Are you telling me that people don't wear steel-toed boots through all seasons :wink:

[timouse]

shoes for each season.

Are you telling me that people don't wear steel-toed boots through all seasons :wink:

that phrase means different things to different people. you do live up in parry sound

[Kaidy Mae]

Carrie's right. Get more coverage than you ever think you'll need. When my van was broken into I had my own stuff, my ex's stuff and some school stuff to replace. While mine wasn't very expensive, the camera stuff sure was. Also, when you're stranded in Toronto in the middle of the night, pissed about the losers that just killed your wicked post-Bela Fleck show buzz and you don't even have a toothbrush, you're going to start comparison shopping. You're not going to shop around for the best deal. You're going to go and get new stuff. I buy a lot of my clothes cheap/used, but when it came to replacing a jacket and 2 Victoria Secret bras, I had to pay full price. They took EVERYTHING (not to mention a 1/4 lb of unclaimables ). I estimated that the theft was between 10-15K. It ended up costing 22K to replace everything. No good. AND, that was with Guigsy being super awesome and hooking us up with great deals on a bunch of new camera gear. I love Henry's! (hehehe, shameless plug for ya dude)

AD, is there no way to just insure the contents of just, say, your room?

[SevenSeasJim]

[TheGoodRev]

I've wanted tenant's insurance for as long as I've lived away from home, but I have never been eligible because 'I live with more than one person who is not related to me.'

I have always had this EXACT problem, and we had a break-in last year...

But now I'm down to just the singular roomate and we're looking into insurance too. The company that insures my parents' house and cars didn't want too much for $25K coverage (something in the neighbourhood of $250/yr) but they wanted the deductible to be $1000. We're shopping for a lower deductible but because neither of us has ever been a primary insurance policy holder, the thousand bucks seems to be the standard.

Thanks for the tips re: insurance value. Just thinking about all that shit and then adding the basement full of musical instruments...we might have to double the coverage!