Why do you need renter’s insurance?
The scariest day of my life happened on the coldest night of the year in Chicago in December 2001. I lived near the lake in a tiny studio apartment. I had just gotten into bed when someone began to pound on my door. “Get out! Get out! The building is on fire!” Since I didn’t really know anyone yet in the windy city, I was annoyed as I rose from my bed to see who this prankster was. Ready to give the knocker a piece of my mind, I eased the door back a crack to see who it was. Smoke immediately enveloped me.
I slammed the door, threw on the jeans, sweater, and boots that I had just removed, and grabbed my heavy woolen coat. Thankfully, my keys and cellphone were in my pocket as I raced down 4 flights of stairs. As I reached the fifth floor, another unknown neighbor grabbed me by the arm and shouted, “Not that way!” Immediately, I fought down the panicked thoughts that I was going to die in a building fire tonight and tried to clear my head. We unlocked arms and ran for the exterior fire escape. We eased out onto the icy iron steps and began to descend as quickly as we could. Though it was on the next side of the building, I could see flames shoot out of the windows and I could hear the glass shattering. When we reached the bottom of the fire escape, we had to jump for the bottom. As my boots hit the concrete, I slipped and fell on a patch of black ice. Mercifully, I managed to get my hands under me, shielding my backside from the impact.
We soon discovered that we were like cattle in a holding pen. The air conditioning units were protected by a 10-foot fence with barbed wired at the top and the gate was padlocked shut making our exit impossible. The neighbors from the high-rise next to us located a ladder and began to cut the dangerous wires away. We began boosting screaming, panicky bodies over the fence until someone (presumably a sleepy super) finally showed up with the padlock keys.
Shivering and miserable, we were herded into the lobby of an adjacent building. When the cold started to wear off, I finally realized that my hands were covered in blood from where I had caught myself. I had a smear or two on my face and looked an absolute fright which met how I felt. Now that I was out of danger, what was I going to do? Where was I going to go? Would the fire department put of the flames before it reached my floor?
So, let me answer the question posed in the title: Why do you need renter’s insurance? You need it for nights like these. If my possessions were destroyed, I lacked any funds to replace them. If I had been the one that caused the fire (a man on the fourth floor left a candle burning and the flame had sparked catching his curtains on fire), it would protect me from the impending lawsuit from both the tenants and the building owner. I had nowhere to stay that night. Renter’s insurance not only covers the dollars to replace possessions and liability, but also covers hotel bills if one is displaced from their home. I was so scared, that I didn’t even have the presence of mind to grab a wallet. I had zero dollars (and even if I had grabbed my purse, I was a broke 23-year-old kid who had just moved to the big city and didn’t have any friends to crash with yet).
The good news is that even though I was out in in subzero weather for several hours, I did get back into my apartment that night mercifully. Sure, it smelled like a bad barbecue gone awry for weeks, but my apartment was intact. Anyone who lived on the fourth floor and under was not so lucky. The fire hadn’t destroyed the building, but the smoke and water damage was substantial. As one of the lucky ones, I felt so bad for those unknown neighbors who were not as fortunate. They were displaced for weeks.
The point of my cautionary tale is this: you may be the most responsible person in the world, but your neighbors are not, and accidents happen. Get renter’s insurance. It is usually less than the price of a pizza per month and provides protection that is worth every cent.