Personal Liability Renters Insurance: What You Need to Know

The personal liability coverage in your renters policy pays for damage you cause to other people or their belongings.
Sarah Schlichter
By Sarah Schlichter 
Updated
Edited by Caitlin Constantine Reviewed by Brenda J. Cude
What Is Renters Liability Insurance, and Do You Need It?

Many or all of the products featured here are from our partners who compensate us. This influences which products we write about and where and how the product appears on a page. However, this does not influence our evaluations. Our opinions are our own. Here is a list of our partners and here's how we make money.

Nerdy takeaways
  • Liability insurance is the section of a renters policy that covers you if you cause harm to others through an accident or negligence.

  • Renters liability insurance may pay for legal costs if someone sues you for situations such as accidents within your home or dog bites.

  • Renters liability insurance isn’t mandated by law, but your landlord may require it in order to sign your lease.

Few people expect to be the target of a lawsuit, but if it ever happens to you, it could cost you dearly. Between damages and legal fees, you could end up owing tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. If you would have a hard time paying that much money out of pocket, you might want renters liability insurance.

What is renters liability insurance?

Renters liability insurance is the part of a renters policy that covers you if you cause injuries to other people or damage to their property. (You may see it called “personal liability” in your policy documents.) Here’s how it works:

You’re playing softball in the yard behind your rental house, and your 12-year-old daughter hits a home run right through your neighbor’s kitchen window. If your neighbor files a claim against you, your liability coverage could pay for things like repairing the broken window and treating any injuries, up to your coverage limit. It also might pay your legal fees if your neighbor decides to sue you.

Personal liability coverage is usually one part of a renters insurance policy that also has other types of coverage. These generally include:

While you usually have to pay a deductible before your personal property coverage comes into effect, there’s generally no deductible on liability claims.

If you’re not interested in a standard renters policy, you may be able to purchase liability coverage on its own. For example, Assurant offers a liability-only policy to tenants living in the company’s partner properties across the U.S. It won’t cover your personal belongings as a renters policy would, but it will cover your liability if you cause a fire or other accident, or your dog bites a guest.

In a 2021 NerdWallet survey, 23% of respondents who currently had renters insurance said they bought it because they wanted personal liability coverage.

Is renters liability insurance required?

Auto insurance may be required by law in most states, but renters insurance isn’t. However, your landlord might require renters insurance — or at least a minimum amount of personal liability insurance — as a condition of your lease. The average cost of renters insurance is $148 a year, or about $12 a month, according to NerdWallet’s rate analysis.

If you're trying to decide between purchasing personal liability-only insurance and a standard renters insurance policy, consider these differences:

Personal liability insurance

Renters insurance

Covers only damage you do to others or their belongings.

Generally covers personal liability plus damage to your own belongings. Also pays expenses of living away from home during covered repairs.

Liability-only insurance for renters can be difficult to find, as standard renters policies are more common.

Widely available from many insurance companies.

What renters liability insurance covers

The key thing to remember about personal liability insurance is that it covers other people and their belongings — not you and yours. For example, if your dog bites someone outside your household, your liability insurance will likely pay for their injuries, as long as your insurer doesn’t exclude that breed. If your dog bites you, though, you’ll have to turn to your own health insurance for coverage.

🤓Nerdy Tip

Did you know that the average dog-related injury claim is more than $64,000? That's according to 2022 data from State Farm and the Insurance Information Institute. Learn more about why your dog needs liability insurance.

Here are a few other scenarios that renters liability insurance may cover:

Falls and injuries in your home. Example: A visiting friend trips over an extension cord in your apartment, breaks their wrist and sues you for medical expenses.

Damage that originates in your home and affects others’ property. Example: A grease fire in your kitchen causes damage to the unit next door.

Damage to other people’s property for which you’re responsible. Example: Your child accidentally breaks a priceless vase while at a friend’s house.

Liability related to social events you host. Example: A guest at your house party has too much to drink and gets into an accident on the way home, injuring passengers in another car. (While your guest’s auto liability coverage might also kick in here, in some states the host who supplied the alcohol can be found liable for such an accident.)

What does personal liability insurance not cover?

Like any other type of insurance, renters liability coverage has limitations. Here are a few scenarios that personal liability insurance won’t cover, and which alternative types of insurance could help instead:

Injuries in common areas. Example: A guest slips and falls on an icy sidewalk outside your apartment building. Your landlord’s liability insurance, not yours, would likely cover their medical expenses because the injury happened in an area that the landlord was responsible for maintaining.

Car accidents. Example: You’re at fault for a wreck that injures two people in another vehicle. Your liability car insurance, not your renters policy, would cover the other parties’ medical bills and repair costs.

Damage to your belongings. Example: A thief breaks into your apartment and steals your laptop, TV and jewelry. This scenario would fall under the personal property coverage in your renters policy, not liability.

Business liability. Example: A client sues you over a problem arising from your home-based business. Renters insurance typically covers only personal liability claims, not those related to a business; you’ll need a commercial policy to handle this type of issue.

Intentional acts. Example: You deliberately throw a rock and break someone else’s window. That’s a crime, not an accident, and your liability insurance almost certainly won’t cover you.

How much renters liability insurance do you need?

Most renters policies offer liability coverage limits ranging from $100,000 to $500,000. If you’re not sure how much to choose, a good guideline is to add up the value of your assets, including your car, bank accounts and retirement savings. By selecting at least enough liability insurance to cover that amount, you’ll reduce the chances of a lawsuit wiping out everything you own.

If you’re expecting your net worth to go up in the near future — for example, if you just landed a better-paying job — you might want to increase your liability limit accordingly. Raising your liability limit from $100,000 to $300,000 costs an extra $12 a year, on average, according to NerdWallet’s rate analysis.

🤓Nerdy Tip

If you need more than the maximum amount of liability coverage from your insurer, consider buying umbrella insurance. This type of insurance offers additional liability coverage above and beyond the coverage on your renters, auto or other policies.

Frequently asked questions

Personal liability insurance is one part of a renters insurance policy. It pays if you cause harm to someone else by accident or through negligence. While you may be able to buy a liability-only policy, a traditional renters insurance policy is more common and includes coverage for your personal belongings in case of fire, theft or other disasters.

The personal liability section of your renters insurance covers injuries and damage you’re responsible for. For example, if your dog bites a neighbor, or a fire in your kitchen damages the unit next door, your personal liability coverage would pay for the associated expenses, up to your policy limit.

Your landlord’s insurance policy covers their liability, not yours. For instance, a landlord policy would likely pay if your guest slips and falls in a public area that the landlord didn’t maintain properly, but not if the guest trips over one of your shoes inside your apartment. To cover your liability, you’ll need your own policy. Learn more about getting renters insurance quotes.

Methodology

NerdWallet survey methodology

The survey of 1,525 adults age 18 and older was conducted online by Russell Research on behalf of NerdWallet on Dec. 3-7, 2021. Of those respondents, 298 currently had renters insurance policies. The results have been weighted to be nationally representative. Any differences noted between subgroups have been tested at 95% confidence level.

Renters insurance rates methodology

To find the average cost of renters insurance in the U.S., NerdWallet calculated the median rate for 30-year-old tenants from multiple insurance companies in every ZIP code across all 50 states and Washington, D.C. Sample tenants were nonsmokers with good credit living in a two-bedroom apartment. They had a $500 deductible and the following coverage limits:

  • $30,000 in personal property coverage.

  • $100,000 in liability coverage.

  • $10,000 in additional living expenses coverage.

  • $1,000 in medical payments coverage.

We made minor changes to the sample policy in cases where rates for the above coverage limits or deductibles weren’t available.

These are sample rates generated through Quadrant Information Services. Your own rates will be different.

Get more smart money moves – straight to your inbox
Sign up and we’ll send you Nerdy articles about the money topics that matter most to you along with other ways to help you get more from your money.