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Insuring your child's property at college

While your child resides at home, his/her belongings are protected under the homeowner's policy covering the home. Most children these days travel away to attend college and bring a large amount of personal belongings with them. If something were to happen to their living quarters, would their personal items be covered?

By definition, children are insured’s on a homeowner’s policy and the premises insured extends to property “temporarily” used as a residence. Therefore, your child’s personal property would be covered. For example, your son lives in an apartment. The apartment suffers fire damage and his clothes, furniture, computer and other items are destroyed. The coverage for these items is found in their parent’s homeowner’s policy. There is no need to purchase a renter’s policy to ensure coverage. The insurance company would treat the loss the same as if the parent’s house had burned.

A key word in the policy language affording coverage is "temporary residence". Once a child moves out of the house and rents an apartment on a permanent basis, say after graduation, a renter’s policy would need to be purchased in order for coverage to be present. Clarification from your agent should be obtained to make sure coverage would still be there is your child rents and apartment for more than one year. If there were any grey areas with the agent or company’s explanation, purchasing a renters policy would be a smart idea. First off, a renter’s policy is not very expensive and secondly, it takes any coverage questions out of the picture if a loss happens.

Try to purchase the renter’s policy from the same company providing homeowner’s coverage. This way there is no finger pointing at the time of a loss. If both policies are with the same company, the claim will be paid faster as the company understands they will be paying the claim either way. With separate companies involved, each company will try to get out paying the claim.

Complete a home insurance quote request to discuss your needs with an agent or request an instant renters insurance quote for your child.

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