Lie to yourself with me! Join me in pretending that we’re going to be smart and read our homeowners or renters insurance policies. Sometime soon, we’re probably going to curl up on the couch with a glass of wine and go through all 200 pages of our insurance coverages and exclusions. That’s what I do whenever I suddenly am given a new contract update in my email or banking app; I find a nice wine to pair with contract law, and devote a few hours to reading before I click “accept.”
So obviously no one does that, even though we probably should. That said, it’s still important to find out what’s in your insurance policy… but does that mean you actually have to read it? Even just finding the summary of your coverages can feel impossible, especially because the table of contents to my building’s master policy starts at page 105… which never fails to blow my mind. That’s like Step 1 in an instruction manual being last.
Of course, we all should read our policies cover-to-cover… but for those of us who don’t (which is probably almost everyone), at least call or email your company to verify what is in your policy. Perhaps more importantly, be sure to ask what is not in your policy, since this can give you a clearer picture of the holes in your coverage. If you can do this over email, that’s even better, so that you have proof and can more easily remember what was said.
It may seem pretty basic, but emailing your insurance provider is a step many people are too overwhelmed to take. Having a professional tell you what you are covered for (and what you are not) is the next best thing to reading the whole policy yourself, and takes way less time. This is especially crucial because most of us have a lot of misconceptions about insurance. According to a Princeton survey, 52% of millennials falsely believe that their landlord’s insurance will cover their belongings. Of course, the landlord’s policy covers the building’s structure, not the personal items of tenants.
Rental policies especially are known to contain delightful surprises. For example, renters insurance typically does not cover flooding, earthquakes, mold, and many other natural disasters. This may seem counterintuitive, since renters insurance does not involve repairing any structural damage to a building, it’s just giving you money as compensation for lost possessions. However, renters are often surprised to find out after a flood that they are not covered.
Renters in general likely know far less about the details of insurance than homeowners do. This is probably because the majority of homeowners have mortgages, and most mortgages have strict insurance requirements. Every year, I get representatives from my mortgage company hounding me for proof of various types of insurance, so it’s extremely difficult for homeowners with loans to avoid learning the basics of insurance. That said, I feel like I am always learning new things about exclusions from my coverage, so I bother my insurance agent each year with questions like “Ok, please give me a bird’s eye view of what changed.”
It’s really not possible to read every single massive contract we’re presented with almost on a daily basis, whether it’s the user agreement for a new app or an insurance policy. Thus, we have to find shortcuts that still get us the basics of what we’re agreeing to. Ironically, in its attempt to make communication easier, social media tech has made communication surprisingly difficult. It may be easy to send someone an email, but surprisingly difficult to check it. When do you actually have time to check all of your correspondence; your work email, your personal email, your email account you use for business spam, your Instagram inbox, your Snapchat, your Facebook inbox, your text messages, your messages from your doctor on your health care app, your physical mailbox, your Slack, your Gchat, your TikTok inbox… do you actually check all of those every day? Neither do I!
This is why it’s important to get an insurance professional to summarize key points of your insurance policies for you. Don’t just give up because you aren’t going to snuggle up to 300 pages of a delicious insurance word salad.
https://streetlightnews.org/flood-insurance/
https://www.insurancequotes.com/home/millennials-lack-renters-insurance
Zero-Coverage Insurance–Do You Have It?
