The primary selling point of homeowners insurance, or renters insurance, is that it covers the property inside your home. When some kind of loss or damage occurs, you know that you can file an insurance claim and receive a certain payment amount to repair or replace the lost items.
What happens when you take your personal possessions outside your home? Is there a magic boundary at your property line declaring your items suddenly uninsured?
The short answer is no. Your items do not lose insurance coverage when you take them away from home. The longer answer is that there are some limits to how they are covered. A standard element of most homeowner and renter policies is off-premises coverage.
What Does Off-Premises Insurance Coverage Include?
Off-premises insurance coverage is typically part of a standard homeowners insurance policy. Never assume that it’s part of your policy; always review your coverage with your insurance agent. Renters insurance also usually contains off-premises coverage, although the limits might be lower than a homeowners policy.
In a standard homeowners policy, your personal property in the home is covered up to a certain percentage of the building value. The percentage is a policy option, but yours might be 50%, or even 75%. For example, if your home is valued at $400,000, your personal property inside the home is covered up to $200,000 or $300,000 depending on the percentage.
The off-premises coverage limit is usually 10% of that personal property limit. This means that a personal property loss away from home can be covered for up to $20,000 or $30,000, respectively. The idea is that you will only ever take a limited value of belongings outside your home.
Off-premises coverage applies in a variety of circumstances. The following is a list of the most common reasons you would need to rely on this coverage:
Property inside your car
While your car is covered by an auto policy, anything you keep in the car would be covered by this aspect of your home insurance. If you take your laptop along on your daily commute, it’s covered if you get into an accident or if someone breaks into your car. While this is reassuring for the day to day items in your car, it’s also helpful to keep in mind when you are traveling or transporting valuables somewhere away from home.
Property in a storage unit
If you rent a storage unit, or hire a moving company to store or transport your property, your off-premises coverage protects your items. The moving or storage company might offer additional coverage that is worth considering. Especially if the value of your belongings exceeds the limits of your personal property coverage, you’ll want to extend your protection. Contact your homeowners insurance agent to compare the options of adding additional coverage to your existing policy or taking advantage of the company’s provision.
Property when you are traveling
Whether you travel in the United States or internationally, your property is covered by yourhomeowners or renters insurance plan. Carefully consider which valuables are worth taking when you make your travel plans. If you’re traveling with expensive items, you might want to extend your coverage or purchase a limited travel insurance plan. If you’re taking sportsequipment, electronics, or a vehicle to a specific destination, you may want to compare the cost of shipping with insurance to the coverage included in traveling with it in your possession.
Property in your student’s dorm room
If your child is moving into on-campus housing for college or trade school, their property remains covered under your homeowners or renters insurance policy. Make sure your student understands the need to be responsible with their belongings, of course, but at least there is a safety net in place if their property gets stolen or damaged. If your child moves off-campus to an apartment, it’s time to set them up with their own renters policy.
Never take it for granted that your policy provides the right amount of coverage for all of these circumstances. This is the type of coverage that might get drastically reduced for lower premiums without the homeowner fully understanding the risks. Take a realistic inventory of your household property and how much of it leaves home regularly. Contact your homeowners insurance agent to review your existing coverage and find out if you really should have a different amount.
Exclusions and Options to Off-premises Coverage
As with every insurance policy, there are exclusions to your off-premises coverage. Many of the same exclusions that apply to your physical house will also apply to your belongings away from home. For example, loss that results from an earthquake, flooding, or an act of war is not usually covered under your standard policy. Also, natural wear and tear is not covered, nor is intentional or neglectful loss.
There are specialty insurance policies for almost every reason you would take personal property away from home. Travel insurance, storage unit coverage, riders on auto insurance, and jewelry policies are all options that are worth reviewing when you have property that needs to be financially protected. Sometimes, these policies are a necessary addition to your homeowners or renters policy. It’s also worth considering how a claim would impact your overall policy. If you have travel insurance and make a claim against that rather than your homeowners policy, you could be saving yourself an expensive headache at renewal time.
Ultimately, off-premises coverage offers adequate protection for how most people manage personal property on any given day. If you think you need something a little different, contact usto review your circumstances. Smyrl Insurance educates, nurtures, and empowers people through insurance so they feel confident about how their coverage works. We can help you make an informed decision regarding your policies based on how you actually use your personal property away from home. We serve clients for homeowner, renters, auto, specialty, and commercial insurance in Hatfield, Lansdale, Souderton, Harleysville, and throughout the region in Montgomery County and Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
