Over a third of Quebec tenants don't have home insurance

Would it be worth your while to skip out on home insurance?

For a lot of Quebecers, the answer appears to be yes. Newly released survey data from Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC) suggests that 37 per cent of tenants in the province do not have a home insurance policy. The data was based on responses from 3,076 polled individuals.

"This new survey shows that the general public still needs to be made aware of the risks they run if they have no home insurance. In addition to losing everything and being homeless, uninsured tenants may have to indemnify the owner if they were responsible for the loss," said Anne Morin, Supervisor, Public Affairs, at IBC.

As it turns out, a lot of survey respondents were aware of the major things that home insurance policies cover. Theft and fire coverage were the most commonly cited, while liability, vandalism, and water damage were also acknowledged by many of them. Some, however, were lacking when it came to the specifics of how a policy treated certain situations.

"It's interesting to note that while they may be familiar with basic home insurance coverage, there are still many uninsured tenants who aren't aware that they would be liable, as a result of a loss, for repairs or replacement of property damaged throguh their own fault," said Morin.

Quebecers who weren't insured had a variety of reasons for choosing not to be. Forty-eight per cent of them said it was because of cost, a sentiment is also reflected in the fact that 70 per cent of the insured respondents claimed to pay less than $22 a month for home insurance. Approximately 33 per cent of respondents felt that the value of their personal property didn't make insurance a worthwhile proposition. Fifteen per cent mistakenly believed that owner's insurance would cover their personal property in the case of loss, while 16 per cent hadn't given it any thought at all.

Home insurance is not mandatory in Canada, though many mortgage lenders will only provide funds in the first place to homeowners who are willing to purchase it.