Does Renters Insurance Cover Hurricane Damage?

Your renter's insurance policy is divided into three parts:

Personal property insurance: protects your furniture, clothes, and anything else you keep in your apartment.

Personal liability and medical expenses: This covers legal and medical expenses if a guest is injured in your home.

Loss of use/additional living expenses: Pays extra costs if you have to leave your residence while repairs are being made due to a covered event.

During a hurricane, both personal property and loss of use are covered. (Personal liability insurance protects you if a visitor is injured in your home.) For your property coverage to apply, it must be damaged or destroyed by a peril listed on your policy.

Hurricanes can cause a lot of damage in various ways, some of which are covered by insurance and others.

Windstorms and hail are hurricane-related perils that your insurance may cover (but check your policy — some renters insurance policies in coastal areas expressly exclude wind and hail damage). Fire and lightning damage are also covered.

Water damage from flooding or storm surge is expressly excluded from any renters insurance policy.

You may believe that damaged goods are damaged after a hurricane, but your insurance company will disagree; before issuing a check, they want to ensure that a covered peril caused the damage.

This can be difficult during hurricanes because there is a lot of wind and water, so who knows what ruined your couch? But the nitpickiness is necessary for your insurance company: if a storm surge or saturated soil and heavy rains caused your home to flood and soak your couch, it would not be covered by your renter's insurance, which expressly excludes flood damage. However, if the wind blew your roof off and the rain-soaked your couch, your renter's insurance would cover it because the damage is directly related to a windstorm — a covered peril.

The end result is a soaked couch in either case, but one is covered by renters insurance, and the other isn't.

If you reside in a flood zone, know that it is critical that you purchase flood insurance to protect yourself from flooding damage during a storm. You can purchase a policy that only covers the contents of your home, and if your couch is ruined during a storm, you can rest assured that it will be covered in another way.