While you are away at college, it might appear that the only thing you truly own is a pizza box or container left over from last night’s dinner. An unplanned event such as theft or fire can help you realize just how much your belongings truly are worth. To avoid finding out the value of your items after it’s already too late, consider investing in renter’s insurance now.

Protecting Your Belongings

By securing what you own through renter’s insurance, you can cover your bases in the event of theft, fire, vandalism or water damage. This way, if you have a roommate who decides to leave the hot plate going or a neighbor has a toilet that overflows, you won’t have to suffer without having your favorite clothing, shoes or electronics for an extended time period.

Adding in reimbursed living expenses as part of your policy will help you pay for temporary housing, food and various other costs. Once you have all of your bases covered, you will be able to spend your time focusing on your schoolwork.

Personal Property Insurance: What Is It?

Personal property insurance helps you to replace all of your belongings in the event it is stolen or damaged. With this type of insurance in place, you can be reimbursed in one of a couple different ways.

Actual cash value coverage reimburses you for the market price of the item, which is the amount you can expect to receive for a lost item at an auction or garage sale.

Replacement cost coverage covers whatever the cost would be to replace the item brand new. Even though the premiums are a little more for this coverage, you will get your items back that you lost without having to settle for less.

What Other Types of Coverage Might You Need?

If you are attending college in an area where there is a lot of flooding, you might want to look into flood insurance to make sure you are protected at all costs. Most of the time, property and home insurance doesn’t cover flood damage, so you need to make sure you have this additional coverage in place before something devastating happens.

Life in college can be anything but predictable. By keeping an accurate list of your items that you have in your apartment, and making sure you have it readily available, you will be ready to go in the event you have to make a claim from damage for an unforeseen event. Make sure your property is protected to prevent any unexpected loss from occurring with your property.