Why would you need storage insurance? That’s easy. You need it for the same reason you need any other kind of insurance.

If anything unthinkable happens, your insured items are protected and you’re reimbursed in full. Conversely, without insurance, your items are gone and you get nothing.

Now, if you’re considering that insurance is a gamble, you’re right. After all, your items are only in storage temporarily. If you pay for insurance and nothing happens, it’s a bet you lose.

However, the other objection you may be thinking is an even bigger gamble. “Storage facilities are supposed to be safe, right?”

Are they? Anyone who’s had their unit vandalized, burglarized, or ravaged by a natural disaster would strongly disagree.

And those are only a few of the risks you take when storing uninsured items.

Learn the rest of them from this list of very convincing reasons you need storage insurance

1. It’s Better Than a Security Guard

Undoubtedly, your storage company has security measures in place to protect their tenants’ belongings. But where there are security measures, there are criminals who work very hard to get around them.

Often, it’s an inside job by a current or ex-employee who knows their way around the security system. Other times, it’s simply a burglar who’s very good at casing security systems and planning escape routes.

Thus, public storage burglaries do still happen. And yours might just be the unlucky unit that gets hit.

You can’t stop it. But you can insure against it.

2. Would You Give These Items Away?

Perhaps you don’t care about your stored items. But the fact that you pay monthly to keep them around suggests otherwise.

That being the case, consider that the only thing protecting your uninsured storage items is the honor system. You’re seriously trusting hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars worth of stored items to those who own and operate the storage facility.

You trust them that much? You must be very close friends.

If you aren’t, then remember the burglary example. The manager who runs the facility might truly be planning to rip off the tenant with the most valuable items.

Or, maybe they’re just careless and lazy. Maybe they cut corners when it comes to security.

The point is, you’ve put all your stored items in their hands. Without insurance, you’re simply taking their word for it that nothing bad will happen to your stuff.

3. That Padlock Won’t Stop a Flood

Maybe you think the odds of a storage unit burglary are too small to worry about. Or you trust highly in the state-of-the-art security measures you personally set up in your unit. Unfortunately, neither of these hopes will do you any good against a flood.

For one thing, your padlocks, security cameras, and GPS tracking devices will do nothing to keep those waters from flooding into your unit from the tiny cracks around the doorway. They’ll flood in just the same, and they could destroy literally everything in your unit (including your pricey security setup).

For two, in a flood, yours won’t likely be the single, unlucky unit that loses the disaster lottery. Storage units are always built side-by-side on level ground.

That means that, if a flood hits the area, it hits absolutely every unit in the storage facility. No one is exempt.

4. You Can’t Lock Out a Fire, Either

Besides that, floods aren’t the only disastrous events that can ransack your storage facility. Other region-specific weather disasters can hit in exactly the same way as a flood.

So which destructive weather events are the most likely for your geographic area? Whether fire, flood, tornado, hurricane, or earthquake, any one of these can destroy the entire storage complex your items are stored at.

No lock can bar them and no security guard can halt them. More importantly, no one will reimburse you for your loss without insurance.

5. Get 100% Coverage (Or Absolutely Nothing)

Now, it’s possible that your storage company offers some sort of compensation if the unfortunate events above take place. If so, it’s probably a small, set amount that has nothing to do with the actual value of the items you lost.

But, as illustrated above the damage to/loss of your property can be very extensive and, therefore, expensive. Any partial reimbursement the storage facility gives you will most likely be a drop in the bucket at best. At worst, it’s just plain insulting.

On the other hand, it’s also possible you signed a release form that states that the storage company is not responsible for stolen or damaged items. In that case, you get nothing. Actually, if you factor in all the months you paid to have the items stored only to ultimately lose them, it’s actually worse than nothing.

This is the most important reason why you need storage insurance. It gives you full coverage of your items and full reimbursement of their total value.

6. Home Insurance Won’t Cover It

Surely you have homeowner’s or renter’s insurance. (If not, you really, really should.) These policies cover the loss or damage of all the items within your home. But they very rarely cover items outside your home except in a few, limited situations.

First, they sometimes cover items that are in transit when moving from one home to another. Second, for a very limited time after the move, they may cover items that are temporarily in storage until you can get them into the house.

The third scenario is that you must temporarily relocate due to a disastrous event that renders your home unfit to inhabit. In this case, your stored items might be covered under “alternative accommodation coverage.”

If you have home insurance, then you obviously care enough about the items in your home to get them covered at full value. But, clearly, you also care enough about your stored items that you keep them stored instead of throwing them out. So why would you protect the items in your home but not the items you keep outside of your home?

Yes, You Definitely Need Storage Insurance

Ultimately, to store without storage insurance is utterly ridiculous. In doing so, you literally gamble whether or not your items will still be there when you return to them. And yet, you still pay each month, just in case your items survive.

On the other hand, storage insurance is a sure thing. This way, you pay for a monthly service that actually does guarantee the safety of your items.

The smart choice is obvious. Always get stored items insured.

Find more great tips for a better life on our lifestyle blog.