Whether the damage is contained to your place or spills over to the apartment below, NYC apartment insurance has you covered
Photo by BKLYN guy / Flickr Creative Commons
In a mad dash to get your bags packed for your weekend getaway, you don’t think twice when your teenage daughter momentarily disappears for one last trip to the bathroom. It’s a good thing you bought NYC apartment insurance. While you were busy packing, your child left the water running because she was distracted by a text, flooding your second-story apartment and causing damage to your neighbor’s home below.
Water soaked your bathroom and one of the bedrooms — where your daughter left a pile of now-ruined clothes on the floor — before seeping through to the ceiling below, causing damage to your neighbor’s living room walls and his prized piano. As you walk through your apartment, you notice that the legs of your hallway table are swollen with water. Your laptop that you left on your bedroom floor can’t be fixed, and the Persian rug in the hall smells like wet sheep.
Even though New York law requires building owners to maintain an insurance policy on the building that you and 20 other people call home, your landlord’s policy won’t cover the damage caused by the water left running in your place. Your renters insurance policy will take care of replacing the moldy clothes and other damage to your belongings. Your policy will also repair damage to the neighbor’s apartment and belongings if you’ve been negligent, or alleged to be negligent and are sued.
For the $150 you spent this year on renter’s insurance, you get a brand new Persian carpet, a laptop and a replacement hall table that was damaged beyond repair. Your neighbor’s walls get scrubbed and repainted, and his piano gets an overhaul.
Renters insurance covers so much more than a home break-in. If you haven’t thought about it, it’s time you did. And if you already have a policy, make sure you have the right amount of coverage to replace what you could lose in the event of a fire, burglary or a very costly overflow.
Gotham Brokerage, a family-run business in New York City for more than 50 years, can match you up with the right agent. Give us a call at [telnumlink]212-406-7300[/telnumlink] or fill out the form at right.
