Homeowners vs Laptop Insurance
Posted by Sarah on Tuesday Jan 5, 2010 Under Uncategorized
How many of us safely assume our homeowners insurance covers our electronics? Well, they do…kinda. Every year we receive our 4 inch thick policy booklet in the mail pledging to ourselves that this year we WILL read it…two weeks later it has become our coffee table coaster, three weeks later it is thrown into the black hole some call a closet. Bare with me, I do have a point here. The next time you receive your coffee coaster/insurance policy take a look at your personal property coverage. Now remember, it will be confusing and probably mind numbing but just do your best. A couple things will probably pop out at you:
1) It will have funny abbreviations like RC, ACV and words like depreciation. Let me help you out here. Some homeowner’s policies can have RC coverage, Replacement Cost (what your property will cost to replace). Most homeowner policies are ACV, Actual Cash Value (what your property will actually cost to replace less depreciation). Depreciation is the percentage the insurance companies will subtract based on the age of your laptop, iPhone, etc.
2) There will be a lot of stipulations you weren’t aware of and
3) your deductible (usually $500 – $1000) is going to be deducted.
So, let’s say you’re charging your laptop. Your buddy comes skipping into the room, runs right into the cord sending your laptop screaming against the wall and you end up with a broken screen on your laptop and a buddy with a black eye. Here’s your problem…you can turn in a claim with your homeowners insurance but after your deductible is taken out you’ll probably get less than $100…especially if you have an ACV policy AND you’ll have a point on your policy because you turned in a claim.
Ready for a bright side? Here it is: Laptop Insurance (which also covers all of your electronics…including iPhones, iPods, kindles, etc.). The premium is a yearly payment and your deductible would be $0 to $100. There you go…a policy that covers all of your electronics, a yearly payment and you won’t have to mess with your homeowner’s policy! Easy right?!
