I already had enough stuff to furnish an apartment. So when we kept carrying in more and more boxes from my future in-laws car, her car, and my car, my first thought was "holy crap."(I might have used an expletive there...) But as our apartment quickly filled up with boxes and shoes, lots of shoes, the realization that we need some insurance coverage in case our apartment gets robbed or destroyed due to a fire, wind damage, or any other covered disaster, became obvious. There is no way we could replace her shoe collection on our own!

The great thing with renters insurance is that it is affordable. The average renters insurance policy costs around $16 a month. Renters insurance protects your possessions in case they are stolen or damaged from a covered peril. There is also liability coverage in renters insurance incase someone falls in our apartment and decides to sue us.

The hardest part of getting renters insurance is creating a home inventory. As we unpacked, we made sure we noted the serial numbers off of her big ticket items (TV, computer, etc...) as well as took pictures of all her belongings. While this was time consuming, the home inventory serves two purposes: 1) if we do have to file a claim, we will have a list of all our possessions as well as how much we paid for them, which will help the claims process and 2) helped us decide how much renters insurance coverage we needed.

In all honesty, I was one of the naïve people who thought "I don't need renters insurance." But once we filled up our apartment, we both knew it was wise to purchase renters insurance. Now we get to compromise on what we watch on our renters insurance protected TV's.