<p>This is just a reminder to consider purchasing dorm insurance. We use CSI, but have been lucky enough NOT to need to use it. If you search, you'll find a couple of recommended companies. Your homeowner's insurance may very well cover loss at school, but many people don't suggest using homeowners for small claims.</p>
<p>Perhaps it depends on the dorm. Many dorms provide security cards for tenants.</p>
<p>When I was an undergrad back in the dark ages…NO ONE could get into the dorm unless escorted by a resident, or as a resident. Still…my roommate and I were robbed one night. Someone stole all of our textbooks, and a good amount of our clothing. When reported to the campus police, we were told that it was likely a resident of the dorm.</p>
<p>So…having secure entry is not something that will prevent theft. Get dorm insurance…either that or don’t worry about the small claims.</p>
<p>Security cards for dorms will not prevent theft when a student is outside the dorm. And they certainly won’t prevent someone on the floor from possibly stealing either. I purchased dorm insurance for my son- I think we paid about $130 for a full year of coverage that includes $5000 of coverage with a $25 deductible.</p>
<p>One of the benefits I’ve read about for the dorm ins is coverage of damage and theft to electronics. I’d check the policy carefully if you are considering buying, just so you understand what is and isn’t covered. </p>
<p>For the record, neither I nor my sibs have purchased this to cover our kids. We probably wouldn’t have been able to make any claims–the only thefts kids had was when they left phones (and S wallet) unattended–D in a school theater and S in gym. </p>
<p>Perhaps there is a policy covering such thefts–I don’t know. If you choose to self insure, be sure you and/or kid could absorb a loss if something unexpected happens.</p>
<p>I think the CSI policy covers phones, but I didn’t read the fine print this year. Reading about lost phones is what made me do the post though.</p>
<p>"Someone stole all of our textbooks, and a good amount of our clothing. " - Would families file a claim for that? I think of insurance for bigger items. Perhaps these days laptops (easily stolen) would be covered.</p>
<p>Textbooks for a term or year can easily run up to $1K per person. If one has insurance coverage for the loss and making a claim wouldn’t raise the premium or cancel the policy, I can see making a claim for $1K of stolen textbooks + clothes. If you don’t make any claims, why buy dorm insurance?</p>
<p>If the claim is against the parents’ homeowners policy, that COULD affect premiums and whether the HO policy is renewed CS cancelled, so people would be more reluctant to file claims.</p>
<p>Actually stolen or damaged textbooks, clothing, etc. are covered. If anyone accidentally spills liquids on DS computer and the computer dies, that would be covered under dorm insurance but not Apple Care (we have CSI, and I believe that the other major dorm insurance company would cover this as well), and my homeowner’s policy deductible would be pretty steep for this.</p>
<p>Is there a geographical limit to the coverage? What if the item is stolen from the U gym, theater on campus, car? Is there coverage beyond the physical space of the dorm room?</p>
<p>Back in the dark ages, textbooks and clothing WERE the big ticket items. We didn’t have computers, cell phones, IPads, microwaves, fridges, etc. </p>
<p>FYI, I didn’t replace those textbooks…I shared with another student in my classes. And I hit up the army navy surplus store for some clothes. Really it would,have been nice to have had some kind of insurance.</p>
<p>^Hlmom</p>
<p>I would have to go through all the fine print, but I do not believe that there were any geographical restrictions. My son has logged all of his major items and took pictures- I have all the serial numbers of any of his more expensive items at home. We also do not have to pay a deductible for computer theft as we have hidden tracking software installed.</p>
<p>We didn’t learn about this cheap, great insurance until our third.
[CSI</a> College Student Insurance - Instant Quote](<a href=“http://www.collegestudentinsurance.com/]CSI”>http://www.collegestudentinsurance.com/)
Waaaaay less than our homeowner deductible, and covered pretty much everything. D2 spilled a cup of coffee on laptop. After campus computer folks verified that it was hopeless (although they were able to recover data!) CSI paid minus the small deductible. She also stepped on her glasses. No problem, new pair.
Get this cheap coverage. There are other companies, I have no relationship to CSI, that’s just the one we used.
Her stuff was covered for 12 months, even during study abroad.</p>
<p>Ask your own insurance company what’s covered by them. For us it was plenty, so we never bothered with dorm insurance.</p>
<p>I signed up with NSSI last year as D1 has a pretty poor track record with electronics. As long as the insured is enrolled in college, the policy covers them anywhere. As it turns out, it wasn’t D who destroyed her laptop, but H, who stepped on it and cracked the screen over the summer. NSSI shipped us a box to overnight the laptop to a repair facility (they paid the shipping both ways.) We had it back a week later, much cleaner and with a new screen, for $25. The 3 years of coverage I bought has already paid for itself. Our homeowners has a $500 deductible, so would not have covered this. Oh, and BTW losing your cell phone is not covered – only damage or theft, and in the latter case there has to be a police report.</p>
<p>Both times, phones were stolen. S did file a police report, but I don’t think D did. For us, it turned out not to be a big deal since we had spare phones and S was able to combine two dead phones to frankenphone a working one. </p>
<p>Good to know there is no geographic limitation and it covers the student and stuff for 12 months, at least with the policy you had. Agree that fine print is important to read.</p>
<p>We never purchased insurance, but our Costco AmEx (which I have no relationship with) replaced two laptop computers which stopped working as well as one or two netbooks and a hard drive. This is a free extended warranty that comes with purchasing using the credit card, no matter where you buy the electronics (one was purchased at a store other than Costco). There were no deductibles and they sent us postage paid boxes to ship the electronics for evaluations (which they paid for), and then declared them unrepairable and gave us full refunds.</p>
<p>Just want to give props to CSI. </p>
<p>My D dropped her iPhone 11 p.m. the Saturday night before her early Sunday morning flight back to school. We filed a claim online and included a photo of the damaged phone that night. By Monday morning we had an email requesting proof of ownership (a snapshot of our Verizon account with her phone on it), proof that she was in school when I bought the policy (her Fall term schedule) and a repair form (estimate) from an Apple specialist. Apple replaced the phone yesterday rather than repairing it, and today CSI cut a check, minus the $25 deductible. We had one individual at CSI who handled the entire claim, and it was a piece of cake.</p>
<p>So, so glad I bought the insurance…</p>
<p>CSI does cover lost phones. Magnetboy left his new Samsung S4 in a cab, tried for weeks to get it back from them, but finally just filed a report with campus police. A notarized claim of loss form, available from CSI, would have also been adequate.</p>
<p>The whole process took about 15 minutes. Luckily we had all the receipts in one place, so the check included the phone, microSD card, the case, and the screen protector. It might be the best $83 I ever spent.</p>
<p>If you have phone insurance through your carrier and you lose the phone, you are probably out of luck. Same goes for dropping it in the toilet. Our Verizon plan required a dead/damaged phone and did not cover if it got wet.</p>
<p>While theft might be the most common worry, a real threat to personal items is also fire, water damage, etc. Dorm fires happen every year somewhere…better to be covered and not need to use the insurance than not covered and have to replace everything on your own dime. Take pictures of everything in the dorm room and keep the pictures at home.</p>
<p>Another satisfied CSI customer here. </p>
<p>We purchased a CSI policy when DS was a freshman to cover the new expensive PC he needed. However, the policy covers ALL personal property, not just electronics - though I’m sure most claims are for PC and phones. </p>
<p>Well, at the end of spring semester DS had over $1,200 worth of designer clothes and a North Face winter coat stolen from the school laundry service. (Like most guys he didn’t do laundry until he had nothing to wear!) </p>
<p>CSI was great to work with. We submitted the campus police report. DS itemized how many shirts, pants etc. were missing and looked up the replacement cost. We then submitted credit card/ debit card statements showing charges at the stores where the clothes were purchased - luckily most back to school shopping was done on a couple of days so the charges were easy to find on the statements. CSI didn’t require individual sales slips for such items; however, they wanted evidence that the student or parent made purchases at the types of stores that sold the name brand goods. (Macy’s, Abercrombie, J. Crew etc. OK - Walmart probably not) Once everything was submitted, we had a check within a week or so.</p>