Renters insurance continues the payments on the property, maintaining their legal claims in the event of disasters, which was the suggestion I was responding to

Renters insurance continues the payments on the property, maintaining their legal claims in the event of disasters, which was the suggestion I was responding to: that renters not have to pay _anything_ in situations like this. Floods and other natural disasters tend to sneak past most common insurance coverage... Regardless, the underlying demands for payment, and to what extent, as posited by OP and detailed by the local laws, are not addressed by insurance alone.