Apartment Rental Insurance
Everyone thinks that renting an apartment if basically free of worries, but alas, there are always concerns. In the past, people have rented an apartment and, basically, purchased furniture with nothing of value to leave in the apartment because they knew their friends would probably break whatever they bought. However, this has nothing to do with rental insurance.
The purpose of rental insurance to protect you from an accident or an unforeseen event. The best example is someone visiting your apartment trips over the throw rug and breaks his arm. Yes - your apartment, you are liable, it is your bill.
Insurance is a game of passing the payment. In the above example, if your friend goes to the hospital and gets fixed, there will be a bill and questions of where and how the damage was incurred. Understand that no one wants to pay for an expense that is not theirs to pay and the same is true of insurance companies. The health insurance of your friend does not want to pay a bill that is your fault, yes, your apartment, your fault. The health insurance will probably try to pass the payment on to you since you are at fault. Don't get the wrong impression, this is not just apartment rental insurance, it is every form of insurance, there is a lot of behind the scenes shuffling of the payment, but if everyone has insurance then you may not pay.
Apartment rental insurance is generally intended to cover two big areas: 1) the potential liability of of an accident, and 2) the potential loss of personal property in case of fire, theft or other natural disaster. Assume your apartment block (all six units) is burned to the ground, the truth is that the property owner is responsible for the building and nothing else, your stuff is your stuff and not covered under the building policy. Your rental insurance is intended to protect your stuff in case of disaster. Your just need to find another place to live and then you need to replace your stuff. The insurance settlement of personal property is very simple, make a list of what you owned and what each item is worth and make it believable. The insurance company will subtract the deductible and pay you the settlement. This coverage will also protect you in case of loss from theft so you need to make sure that the claims are believable. You can't claim an original DeVinci painting if everything else is on the level of a Farrah Fawcett poster. This is protecting your stuff.
Liability insurance is protecting your finances. Go back to the broken arm of your friend, any idea of how much an Emergency Room will charge for this service? You do not want to write that check and most of the time, the premiums on a rental insurance policy are not that bad. Now assume that the Pizza Delivery guy trips on the threshold and breaks something. The problem is that the person with the broken whatever wants to be covered and doesn't care who pays, whether it is you, your insurance or the landlord of the apartment. After all is said and done, this expense will be placed at your feet so the insurance is intended to protect you from financial disaster.
There are lots of companies that can provide the insurance so call around and find out what they cover, never assume that they are all the same and the extra items covered will vary so it never hurts to ask.