Renters Insurance: Why You Need It

When Stephen Slaybaugh returned to his two-bedroom apartment in Columbus, Ohio one evening after work, something was not right.

"At first I thought my girlfriend had just left a bunch of things strewn about," he says. "Then as I walked through the apartment, there was stuff she obviously wouldn't have left out. Then I noticed the lock on the door was busted. Someone had broken into the apartment."

The thieves had made off with his laptop with a new hard drive, an electric guitar and two concert tickets. "They just took things that they could leave the apartment with fairly unnoticed," he guesses.

Because Slaybaugh has renters insurance, every item was replaced. "I was especially impressed, because even though the computer was several years old, they paid me what it would cost to get a comparable computer at the time of the theft -- as opposed to just paying the cost of the old computer."

Here is what you need to know about renters insurance: