<p>I was just chatting with my son who moved into school a few days early as he will work on move-in, and hence has no one around to talk with except his mom!</p>
<p>Simultaneously he was on the phone with a very good friend, a girl who had flown half way around the world to Worcester, MA and had just finished her 2nd day of school there. Her laptop and I-pod had already been stolen from her locked dorm room by someone who evidently had a key. Oh too late, the locks now have been changed. </p>
<p>This sort of thing could happen everywhere and anywhere and I think it is worth it for kids, at least until they have a sense of what is going on and things are settled, to have a particular security plan in mind for their valuables.</p>
<p>I don't want to spark a debate on insurance -- it is true that you may already be covered on your homeowner's insurance and extra coverage may not be necessary. (I'm not so sure, because I have my homeowner's policy with the same company as my car insurance, and I've taken the kid off the auto policy - in any case I've got a $500 deductible on my homeowner's policy, and I just bought a student policy for my kid with a $50 deductible - they also have $25/deductible policies availalble).</p>
<p>Anyway, I'm kind of superstitious: I believe that if I buy insurance, whatever I have insured against will never happen, but if I think about buying it and don't, then for certain something terrible will happen the very next day. If anitaw's son's friend got her laptop and ipod stolen, my d must be the next in line.... so I just bought some piece of mind for myself. Now, for the rest of the school year I won't stress worrying about whether or not my d. is leaving her dorm room locked when she goes out to take a shower.</p>