Written by:
Leah Golob
THE CANADIAN PRESS
June 21, 2022
📰 Read the FULL ARTICLE here.
Read an excerpt below.
When deciding whether to get tenant insurance, Cindy Marques, CEO and co-founder of MakeCents, a financial coaching company for millennials, said people should ask themselves what it would look like financially if they lost expensive items such as a smartwatch or computer to theft or damage and had to replace them out of pocket.
Tenants also need to consider if they’d be able to afford any legal costs if someone were to get hurt in their home or if they were to cause damage to another unit, she said. The same goes for if their home became temporarily unlivable and they had to relocate.
While some people might create an emergency fund to cover these costs instead, Marques advises against it, explaining that an emergency fund is better used for “income protection” against any earning interruptions due to illness, injury, job loss, a low to no income month as a business owner, or unexpected events, like the COVID-19 pandemic.
You especially don’t want to find yourself out of luck and having to cover the costs of theft or damage while you’re simultaneously dealing with income loss, she added.
Marques, like McFetridge and Johnson, doesn’t see any downside to tenant insurance.
“If you’re quite well off and have ample savings and investments, then maybe you don’t need the insurance because you can afford to replace everything without experiencing any financial distress,” Marques said.
“But, if the cost of funding a $30 a month policy feels too expensive to you, then that’s exactly why you need it … if it’s a bit expensive then you definitely can’t afford to not have it and otherwise take on the cost of thousands of dollars without it.”
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