Insurance companies consider college students to be residents of their parents’ home, temporarily residing elsewhere. They also consider your dorm-room contents to be “personal property, located off premises”.

 Most homeowners/renters policies extended coverage of 10 percent of personal property for property located off premises. If you have $100,000 of contents coverage at home, you will have $10,000 coverage for an off premises dorm room.

 Often times dorm rooms are left unlocked and items taken without the tell tale signs of a forced entry or break in. In this instance, the missing items are considered by insurance companies, such as Astro National, not as stolen, but as mysteriously disappeared. Mysterious disappearance is not a covered peril on most homeowners and renters policies.  However, more expensive items like a laptop computer can be scheduled and additional premium paid that not only will cover the mysterious disappearance, but also not subject to the policy deductible.

 If your child is considering renting an apartment they should obtain their own renters policy. Many insurance companies will not insure multiple names, or unrelated names, on a single policy. Each roommate should obtain their own policy. Also, if you, as a parent signed the lease, you and the student should both be named as insureds on the policy.