Property insurance for kids stuff in the dorm and dropping a new freshman from my auto policy?

Parents Forum Parent Cafe
21

I don’t think we’d claim for contents - my kids have a TV and clothes. It wouldn’t be worth paying $10 or $12 a month to insure that.

I think the apartments want insurance moreso for liability - both my kids require $100K I think.

I don’t think insuring in a dorm is necessary - but to your point - you’re in a different situation with high end instruments.

Then I guess it’s a risk reward type thing - is spending x $ or x hundreds of dollars a year worth having to replace potentially x $ worth of value.

But insurance never even came up to us in a dorm - at either of our two colleges…just apartments.

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22

I use Gallagher’s for my sons’ property insurance for dorm and off-campus apartments except the one that required he use their renter’s insurance. One son has filed two claims – phone repair and something else I can’t remember now - and they paid promptly. You can choose deductible, how much to insure and it covers them for a full year including if studying abroad.

I asked our auto insurance company to set one son to away at college because he was more than 500 miles away with no car. It reduced our premium by like $2. So not worth it.

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23

My son moved to NC last year and just recently was able to get an appointment to get his NC drivers license. We had a long discussion over the fact that he had to prove insurance coverage since not everyone who gets a license even owns a car. Then they wouldn’t take just the insurance card, he needed a copy of the declaration page showing his name. Which he didn’t have because he’s temporarily using one of our cars.

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24

We didn’t get dorm insurance but we do have an umbrella policy. When my D got an off campus apartment for grad school renters insurance was required so we got that.

We did keep the kids on our car insurance (our D was far enough away to get a discount). Realistically college is two 14 week semesters so they were home a good amount and would want/need to drive during school vacations, for summer jobs etc.

25

Did he get it squared away? Your insurance company can usually fax the form to the NCDMV. I think it’s form DL-123.

26

Yes, thanks to me driving home from work (only 4 miles but he was lucky it was a rare day I could leave like that) and scanning the declaration page for him. I tried calling both company and our agent and couldn’t get anyone on the phone. He was grateful because it took him a long time to get that appointment.

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27

I got one kid dorm insurance from NSSI primarily to cover her instrument. The insurance was used twice. When a phone was stolen the insurance covered a refurbished identical phone plus case, taxes, and shipping, minus the small deductible. When a laptop was dropped the insurance repaired it (by mail, and it took a couple weeks, so the decision was to deal with the wonky screen until the semester was over.) Both claims were easy.

With the two claims we ended up about even, and had the piece of mind that her instrument was covered in case of mishap.

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