So your baby is off to college! Are you happy or sad? You will probably experience both feelings as this is definitely a transitional time for the whole family. Parents are trying to adjust to a quieter home environment and the student is feeling a sense of freedom never experienced before. College campus' provide a wonderful world of new experiences and a wide open social environment to make new friends. Wildly fun parties can be found any day of the week at most college campus' around the country. But if someone gets hurt, or drinks and drives and causes an accident, the host of the party can be in serious legal jeopardy and so can their parents!
The parents have worked hard all their lives and accumulated assets which might have to be forfeited to an injured party if their student hosts a party and someone gets injured. Does that sound possible? The answer is YES. So make sure you have the right insurance in place to protect your assets from a lawsuit.
There are 2 Ways to Purchase Liability Insurance to Cover Your College Student
If your student lived at home before going off to college and lives in a dorm provided by the school and is a full-time student, you can simply add their dorm address as a secondary location on your home policy. The key is the student needs to be living in a dorm. The average home policy has $300,000 in Liability Coverage which would also extend to the added secondary residential location.
If your student has moved off campus and into an apartment (this typically happens the 2nd year of college), then most insurance carriers require you to purchase a Renters Insurance Policy for that location. The average Renters Insurance Policy will have $100,000 in liability coverage on it. But I suggest increasing that liability limit to $500,000 as it only costs about an additional $25/year to increase to the much higher limit.
Cheap Way to Get Extra Liability Protection
Liability umbrella policies are very inexpensive and the provide additional liability limits of insurance from $1million to $5million above the limit provided by the home policy or renters insurance policy. The average cost of a $1million umbrella policy is only $200/year.
If you purchase a Renters Insurance Policy with at least $300,000 in liability OR add the dorm residence location to your home policy--you can then add your college students residence address to your Liability Umbrella policy for extra protection.
At Denver West Insurance Brokers all our representatives are licensed insurance agents. We are a local, independent insurance broker located in Golden Colorado. We service the cities of Arvada, Wheat Ridge, Lakewood, Morrison, Evergreen, Denver and Littleton, but we welcome clients who live anywhere in Colorado. Give us a call. We are happy to answer any additional questions you might have in insuring your college student.