Say your apartment gets broken into. Your laptop, your PlayStation, your clothes — gone. Your roommate files a claim on their renters insurance and gets reimbursed. You get nothing.
That’s not a worst-case scenario. That’s just how it works.
According to the Texas Department of Insurance, your roommate’s policy covers only their belongings — not yours. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been living together for two years or two months. If your name isn’t on the policy, your stuff isn’t covered. (Some insurers do allow roommates to be added to a single policy as a named insured, but this is the exception — you’d need to confirm it explicitly with the insurer, and most standard policies don’t work this way.)
And don’t think your landlord’s insurance saves you either. Farm Bureau Financial Services explains that your landlord’s policy typically only covers the building itself — the walls, the plumbing, the electrical — not a single thing you own inside it.
The safest move: everyone in a shared apartment should get their own separate renters insurance policy. That way if there’s a fire, a flood, or a robbery, you’re covered for your stuff regardless of what your roommate does or doesn’t have.
Renters insurance is also one of the cheapest kinds of insurance you can buy — often somewhere between $10 and $20 a month depending on where you live, what you own, and which insurer you go with. For what it protects, it’s genuinely one of the better deals out there.