Risk & Business Magazine Gillons Insurance Fall 2015 | Page 28

“Do My Kids Need Renters Insurance?”

The Importance of a Tenants Policy
BY: TREVOR FITZGERALD, GILLONS INSURANCE

I

t’s a question we often get here at
Gillons. Personally, with children ages
10, 5, and 3, I’m a little removed from
having to worry about this, but one day
my kids will grow up and move out of
the house. And when they do and they’re
(mostly) independent, it’s time for them
each to get “renters insurance” or as
we say in the industry, a tenants policy.
It’s incredibly important to do so, both
in terms of safeguarding them from
financial disaster and making them
attractive to insurance companies in the
future. So what is a tenants policy and
why is it so important anyway?
Let me start with who does not need
the coverage. If your child is a student,
chances are they don’t need the coverage
because it’s automatically extended from
your home policy. Contact your broker to
be sure, but you’ll probably find coverage
of $5,000 to $10,000 or more, along with
liability insurance, for as long as they’re
a student. Also, regardless of whether
or not they’re a student, if they’re living
at home they’ll be covered under your
policy.  
So, what about the other 4.1 million
Canadian households who rent and are
not students? They all need a tenants
policy. With less than half of renters
carrying tenants insurance, I would argue
it is the number one misunderstood and
underutilized product in the insurance
industry.
As you can probably guess, the tenants
policy covers a renter’s possessions such
as clothing, furniture, and electronics.
However, this is not the most important
reason for having a tenants policy! In
fact, depending on the value of your son
or daughter’s possessions, it may not even
be the second most important reason. I
encourage you to insure your possessions,
but here are three other reasons for
buying a tenants policy that you may not
have thought about:

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Liability insurance
This is by far the most important
reason to have a tenants policy. Let me
give you four stories of lawsuits that
have happened rig \