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I... Don't get this mentality. Yes replacing 25k worth of contents isn't that big a deal (although it would suck), but in a fire there are other costs that dwar

I... Don't get this mentality. Yes replacing 25k worth of contents isn't that big a deal (although it would suck), but in a fire there are other costs that dwarf your contents. Think about how much your building/unit is worth. If the fire started in your place, you could be responsible for all these damages (and especially your neighbour's). Can you afford to repay a whole new building for you and your neighbours + their contents? How about living out of a hotel for a few months while the place is being repaired (which repairs you'll have to cover too) and potentially paying your neighbours' bills for that as well? How does that compare to a 1000$ deductible and a 300$/year premium? To me it's a no brainer. If you really want a low premium, get a 2 or 5k deductible, 5k contents, and shop around. You'll also get added protection like third party liability which is usually minimum 1 million $ and covers any damage you'd do to other's property. Of course no-one wakes up thinking they'll set their house on fire or flood the unit under them. And yet that happens every day. I don't know anyone who didn't have insurance and who got struck by a fire/flood/other damages say that they regret nothing and wouldn't buy insurance if they could go back in time.

adetrest 8y ago
Not even mentioning the ridiculous costs (especially in the US) that come into play should the fire that started in your unit injure or kill anyone.
celticninja 8y ago
My buildings and contents insurance cost me about $280 a year, I happily pay that for the peace of mind of being covered if shit happens.
- code_duck 8y ago
  It’s great, if the insurance company actually pays when your circumstances merit compensation.
  - mcguire 8y ago
    Insurance companies, to my knowledge, almost always pay out for "normal" claims on standard policies, with some reasonable exceptions. That's why when they don't, it's news. You may not get all that you think you deserve, or you may get more (after the 2011 tornadoes, our insurance paid for a new roof, although only about a third was damaged by the falling tree).
  - TomVDB 8y ago
    We have filed a few claims over the past 10 years, including: Water damage due to a sudden burst of a pipe. Required expensive drying of walls, replacement of part of the drywall and replacement of the flooring. Dealing with insurance was extremely pleasant. Burglary of house. Lost laptops, camera, time machine, diamond earrings. Similar experience. Surpringly, the rule was: if you want to be reimbursed in cash, you get the current value (which is close to zero for a 6 year laptop). But if you buy a new laptop, you get the original purchase price reimbursed. “Hello new MacBookPro!” Zero complaints about the insurance.
    - mcbits 8y ago
      > time machine Wow! How much was the replacement cost for that?
      - gruez 8y ago
        probably talking about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AirPort_Time_Capsule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AirPort_Time_Capsule, which works with time machine (the software)
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
        TomVDB 8y ago
        Yes, that. :-)
    - chaostheory 8y ago
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
devonkim 8y ago
I begrudgingly get insurance for certain things because I hear enough times how insurance will find a way to avoid paying for even those supposed protections. I hear that plenty times from homeowners where insurance refuses to cover anything they should have paid for due to improper evidence and it’d have been cheaper to save and invest the money spent instead of going through the adjusters while, say, waiting for a new roof. Then there’s the costs once you do eventually file and receive a legitimate claim for your liability (the primary upside of group insurance as a policyholder) and many insurers will refuse to carry you going forward. So it’s almost a one time benefit for many. On the flip side, insurance fraud exists but is definitely prosecutable while I don’t think I’ve ever heard of someone winning against an insurance company’s lawyers for being denied a claim unjustfully.
- conanbatt 8y ago
  This is a serious topic, and it turns out that the relationship of insured-insurer is just really complicated. Moral hazard and adverse selection are real issues insurance faces: that being covered makes the insured more reckless, and that people with higher risk self-select to sign up for insurance. OTOH, insurance companies make more money the less claims they pay.
  - devonkim 8y ago
    I think serious topics need to be discussed a lot more because the things that cost Americans the most day-to-day are housing, healthcare, and arguably insurance (when it doesn't work for them) - all of these things are "complicated" and it's as if we stop being able to talk about anything substantive anymore as a society. Forget the death of long form journalism, how about longer, serious discussions? Every other person I talk to about these things just doesn't seem to care and it's pretty much "X is hard, let's go shopping" left and right, including from people that are otherwise rather educated and smart. We seem to be too exhausted for whatever reason to learn enough to act rationally, which is rather important for a capitalist system like we have. This tendency goes all sorts of ways from political topics to nonsense like anti-vaxxers and so forth.
throwawaymath 8y ago
> Yes replacing 25k worth of contents isn't that big a deal (although it would suck), This would be absolutely devastating to most people in America (and the world). Being able to tank a $25k loss without any insurance help is a very privileged position. I don't have a point of contention with your comment. I just wanted to make that observation, because I think it can be easy for many of us to forget it.
- derekp7 8y ago
  I'm sure that most of that 25k wouldn't need to be replaced. Clothes, dishes, furniture would be the main items. And for me, 90 percent of my closest really needs to be purged.
  - all2 8y ago
    I'm not sure a house fire would be the best way to purge your closet, though. As funny as a sitcom with that plot would be, I'm sure there's a better way in reality. If you feel overwhelmed by the prospect of purging, try doing it a piece at a time. Even make a game of it: when you get dressed in the morning, you also need to pick an item. That item goes into a box near your front door. When the box is full, go donate it, burn it in the back yard, what-have-you.
    - SamReidHughes 8y ago
      That's a plot point that is used a lot, and it's not really a sitcom thing. More of a hero's journey get-him-Jack-Reacherized sort of event. I had it happen once in a move: At 23, all my possessions got squeezed into 6 packages (5 of which were media mail), a bookbag, and a checked luggage. Everything else got thrown out or given away. I'd been living in a furnished room. At the new location, the only thing I needed to replace was a computer monitor.
  - xenophonf 8y ago
    In an apartment or house fire, you've lost _everything_. Picture your bathroom in your mind and think of everything you need to replace just in that one room. Toiletries and soaps. Towels and washcloths. The shower caddy and the shower curtain. The plunger. The cleaners under the sink. The books on the back of the toilet. Now do the same calculation in your kitchen, your bedroom, your family room. The couch, those chairs, a TV, your mattress and box spring and bedsheets and blankets, dishes and glassware and silverware, pots and pans, and so on. Even if you own cheap stuff, that all adds up very quickly into a loss most people can't readily absorb, even when you factor out the pile of stuff you don't wear any more and really ought to donate. I think we could inventory a lower/middle-income renter's belongings and spend $25K pretty easily.

adetrest 8y ago

Not even mentioning the ridiculous costs (especially in the US) that come into play should the fire that started in your unit injure or kill anyone.

celticninja 8y ago

My buildings and contents insurance cost me about $280 a year, I happily pay that for the peace of mind of being covered if shit happens.

code_duck 8y ago
It’s great, if the insurance company actually pays when your circumstances merit compensation.
- mcguire 8y ago
  Insurance companies, to my knowledge, almost always pay out for "normal" claims on standard policies, with some reasonable exceptions. That's why when they don't, it's news. You may not get all that you think you deserve, or you may get more (after the 2011 tornadoes, our insurance paid for a new roof, although only about a third was damaged by the falling tree).
- TomVDB 8y ago
  We have filed a few claims over the past 10 years, including: Water damage due to a sudden burst of a pipe. Required expensive drying of walls, replacement of part of the drywall and replacement of the flooring. Dealing with insurance was extremely pleasant. Burglary of house. Lost laptops, camera, time machine, diamond earrings. Similar experience. Surpringly, the rule was: if you want to be reimbursed in cash, you get the current value (which is close to zero for a 6 year laptop). But if you buy a new laptop, you get the original purchase price reimbursed. “Hello new MacBookPro!” Zero complaints about the insurance.
  - mcbits 8y ago
    > time machine Wow! How much was the replacement cost for that?
    - gruez 8y ago
      probably talking about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AirPort_Time_Capsule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AirPort_Time_Capsule, which works with time machine (the software)
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - TomVDB 8y ago
        Yes, that. :-)
  - chaostheory 8y ago
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

devonkim 8y ago

I begrudgingly get insurance for certain things because I hear enough times how insurance will find a way to avoid paying for even those supposed protections. I hear that plenty times from homeowners where insurance refuses to cover anything they should have paid for due to improper evidence and it’d have been cheaper to save and invest the money spent instead of going through the adjusters while, say, waiting for a new roof. Then there’s the costs once you do eventually file and receive a legitimate claim for your liability (the primary upside of group insurance as a policyholder) and many insurers will refuse to carry you going forward. So it’s almost a one time benefit for many. On the flip side, insurance fraud exists but is definitely prosecutable while I don’t think I’ve ever heard of someone winning against an insurance company’s lawyers for being denied a claim unjustfully.

conanbatt 8y ago
This is a serious topic, and it turns out that the relationship of insured-insurer is just really complicated. Moral hazard and adverse selection are real issues insurance faces: that being covered makes the insured more reckless, and that people with higher risk self-select to sign up for insurance. OTOH, insurance companies make more money the less claims they pay.
- devonkim 8y ago
  I think serious topics need to be discussed a lot more because the things that cost Americans the most day-to-day are housing, healthcare, and arguably insurance (when it doesn't work for them) - all of these things are "complicated" and it's as if we stop being able to talk about anything substantive anymore as a society. Forget the death of long form journalism, how about longer, serious discussions? Every other person I talk to about these things just doesn't seem to care and it's pretty much "X is hard, let's go shopping" left and right, including from people that are otherwise rather educated and smart. We seem to be too exhausted for whatever reason to learn enough to act rationally, which is rather important for a capitalist system like we have. This tendency goes all sorts of ways from political topics to nonsense like anti-vaxxers and so forth.

throwawaymath 8y ago

> Yes replacing 25k worth of contents isn't that big a deal (although it would suck), This would be absolutely devastating to most people in America (and the world). Being able to tank a $25k loss without any insurance help is a very privileged position. I don't have a point of contention with your comment. I just wanted to make that observation, because I think it can be easy for many of us to forget it.

derekp7 8y ago
I'm sure that most of that 25k wouldn't need to be replaced. Clothes, dishes, furniture would be the main items. And for me, 90 percent of my closest really needs to be purged.
- all2 8y ago
  I'm not sure a house fire would be the best way to purge your closet, though. As funny as a sitcom with that plot would be, I'm sure there's a better way in reality. If you feel overwhelmed by the prospect of purging, try doing it a piece at a time. Even make a game of it: when you get dressed in the morning, you also need to pick an item. That item goes into a box near your front door. When the box is full, go donate it, burn it in the back yard, what-have-you.
  - SamReidHughes 8y ago
    That's a plot point that is used a lot, and it's not really a sitcom thing. More of a hero's journey get-him-Jack-Reacherized sort of event. I had it happen once in a move: At 23, all my possessions got squeezed into 6 packages (5 of which were media mail), a bookbag, and a checked luggage. Everything else got thrown out or given away. I'd been living in a furnished room. At the new location, the only thing I needed to replace was a computer monitor.
- xenophonf 8y ago
  In an apartment or house fire, you've lost _everything_. Picture your bathroom in your mind and think of everything you need to replace just in that one room. Toiletries and soaps. Towels and washcloths. The shower caddy and the shower curtain. The plunger. The cleaners under the sink. The books on the back of the toilet. Now do the same calculation in your kitchen, your bedroom, your family room. The couch, those chairs, a TV, your mattress and box spring and bedsheets and blankets, dishes and glassware and silverware, pots and pans, and so on. Even if you own cheap stuff, that all adds up very quickly into a loss most people can't readily absorb, even when you factor out the pile of stuff you don't wear any more and really ought to donate. I think we could inventory a lower/middle-income renter's belongings and spend $25K pretty easily.