Does Renters Insurance Cover Moving Damage?

Renters tend to move around a lot. It’s the nature of renting. Whether you move due to relocating, increasing rent prices or just a simple switch of scenery, your renters insurance policy could actually protect your belongings during the process. Let’s take a look to see what is and isn’t covered when moving.

If you’re moving, renters insurance will only cover your personal belongings if they’re damaged or destroyed due to a covered peril or if they’re stolen during the moving process. It won’t cover your belongings if they’re damaged or destroyed by negligence or carelessness on the mover’s behalf.

For you to get coverage for your belongings under your renters insurance policy during the moving process, something catastrophic would have to occur. For instance, if you’re moving during a tornado, hurricane or another natural disaster and the strong winds cause a tree to fall on the moving truck, you could be covered.

Your personal property is paid out on an actual cash value or replacement cost basis. Actual cash value takes the depreciation of your items into account when reimbursing you for their value while replacement cost coverage simply reimburses you the amount you paid for the item. Since replacement cost coverage will pay you more, it also increases your premiums a bit.

There are some exceptions to your coverage, though. Your policy will likely only reimburse you for up to 10% of your total coverage to replace your belongings. So $20,000 worth of personal property coverage would only result in $2,000 worth of coverage for your belongings during the move.

Companies put these restrictions in place because your belongings are typically inside your home. High-value items, like laptops and cell phones, may be on your person. But your furniture and entire wardrobe are inside the home 99.9% of the time.

However, your scheduled personal property, such as jewelry and other high-value items, will likely be covered to their full value. But you must schedule each item to ensure you’re covered. You may also be able to add an endorsement or rider to your policy to protect these items.

If your belongings are damaged by the movers, they should be covered by their unique movers insurance policy, which is separate from renters insurance. However, there’s still another way you may be covered for moving expenses — but it entails a larger scope of damage and an unexpected move.

If the rental property you’re living in is damaged or destroyed by a covered peril and you’re temporarily forced to move out while it’s being repaired, your moving expenses would be covered by your policy’s loss of use coverage — if you’ve included it in your policy.

Loss of use coverage isn’t mandatory in renters insurance, but it’s a wise addition to help round out your policy. If your home is deemed uninhabitable by something like water damage, you’d file a renters insurance claim with your insurer. They’d send an adjuster to the scene and determine whether or not your home is livable. If it’s unlivable, your policy’s loss of coverage would kick in.

Loss of use coverage pays for additional living expenses when you’re unexpectedly forced to move from your home, so it would cover things like moving expenses and storage fees for the items you can’t bring along to your new home.

You can personally set the dollar amount of how much loss of use coverage you’d like. The more you get, the higher your average cost of premiums. It’s best to match your coverage with at least three months’ worth of living expenses. So if it costs you $2,000 each month to live — including rent, food and gas — you should probably opt for at least $6,000 in coverage.

Your renters insurance policy only covers moving costs and expenses if your home is damaged so severely by a covered peril that you’re forced to temporarily move out while it’s being repaired or rebuilt. Your policy’s loss of use coverage would reimburse you for the reasonable amount of moving costs, as well as storage fees.

As we previously stated, renters insurance covers your belongings during a move if they’re damaged or destroyed by a covered peril — except if that damage is sustained by flooding. If your belongings are damaged by the movers if the damage is caused by negligence or carelessness.

Whether the movers are being careless and drop your items, if they accidentally fall out of the moving truck or get scuffed up along the way, your movers should always carry adequate insurance to replace your belongings.

It’s always wise to ask what kind of insurance your movers have. There’s always a small chance the moving truck could be involved in an accident during the moving process and get totaled, so it’s always wise to determine if they have enough coverage to match the value of all your belongings.