Moon Insurance Managers, Inc. · TDI license #5595
Renters Insurance in Houston, TX
Your landlord's policy rebuilds the walls around your apartment and replaces nothing inside it — not the couch, not the laptop, not the clothes. That gap is the entire reason this policy exists, and it is the smallest one we write. It usually takes one short call.
The flood notice with your lease
- In force since
- January 2022
- Notice must state
- The 1% floodplain
- Second notice
- Flooding in the last 5 years
- The notice says
- Flood is not covered
- NFIP contents, tenant
- Up to $100,000
- 41years in Houston
- 20+markets compared
- Same dayDPS filing
- #5595TDI license
Three coverages
What a renters policy actually covers
It is a small policy with three jobs. Two of them protect you and one of them protects the building's owner, which is why the lease asks for it:
- Your things Personal property
- Furniture, clothes, the laptop, the television. Fire, smoke, theft, vandalism, a burst pipe — and often away from home too, which is the part people do not expect. Jewelry, instruments and cameras can be scheduled separately when they are worth more than the policy’s per-item cap.
- Your liability The part the lease cares about
- A guest hurt in your unit, or damage you cause to the building — a kitchen fire, a tub left running into the apartment below. This is the coverage a leasing office is asking about when it names a minimum limit.
- Somewhere to stay Loss of use
- If a covered loss makes the unit unlivable, the policy pays toward a hotel and the extra cost of living elsewhere while it is repaired. Used first, thought of last.
Ask which basis your contents settle on. Replacement cost buys a new sofa; actual cash value pays what a ten-year-old sofa was worth the day before the fire. The difference in premium is small and the difference at a claim is not.
Picking the contents limit takes about five minutes and almost nobody does it. Walk the apartment and total what it would cost to buy everything again this week — not what you paid, not what it would fetch secondhand. Most people land higher than they guessed, because the answer includes every plate, towel and pair of shoes, and a wardrobe alone runs into thousands.
One thing the contents limit does not fix: the per-category caps inside it. A ring or a camera worth more than the policy's cap for its category is scheduled by name instead — the same fix that works on a homeowners policy, on yours.
The liability limit is the other number worth a moment. Match the lease first, then ask whether the next limit up costs anything meaningful — it usually does not, and liability is the coverage that pays for a fire that started in your kitchen and finished in somebody else's apartment.
The Houston exclusion
It does not cover flood — and your lease has to say so
Renters policies exclude flood, exactly as homeowners policies do. Rising water is a separate contents-only policy through the National Flood Insurance Program, covering a tenant's belongings up to $100,000. Texas does not leave you to find that out afterwards: since January 2022 a landlord has had to hand every tenant a separate written notice saying whether the dwelling sits in the mapped 1 percent annual chance floodplain, plus a second notice if it has flooded within the last five years, and the statutory wording says outright that “most tenant insurance policies do not cover damages or loss incurred in a flood.” If that notice came with your lease it was telling you to call someone — our flood insurance page is the longer answer.
Sources: Tex. Prop. Code § 92.0135 — notice for a dwelling in a floodplain; FEMA — flood coverage for renters. Verified .
What Texas requires
“My lease says I need it”
Texas law does not require a tenant to carry insurance. Your lease can, and in Houston's larger complexes it almost always does — typically a personal liability limit of $100,000, sometimes more, with the management company named so it receives notice if the policy lapses.
None of that is unusual and none of it is negotiable in practice, so the useful thing is to read the clause before you shop: the limit it names, whether it wants the landlord listed as an interested party, and the date proof is due. Bring us those three and the policy matches them the first time.
We can usually bind on the call and send the certificate straight to the leasing office.
Source: TDI — renters insurance consumer guide. Verified .
The cheap companion
Put it with the auto policy
Most of our renters policies are written next to an auto policy, and carriers price the pair better than either alone. We will not put a number on that here — what a discount is worth depends on the carrier, the record and the vehicle, and any page quoting you a figure before it has rated you is making it up.
If your auto quote came in high because of the record behind it, that is the book we actually specialize in, and the bundle arithmetic still works in your favor. One call covers both.
No obligation
Get covered today
A handful of questions and your things are covered.
The office is on FM 1959 if you would rather do it in person.
Monday to Thursday, 9:00 to 5:00; Friday, 9:00 to 4:00. 360 FM 1959, Houston, TX 77034.
Renters questions we get every week
Is renters insurance required in Texas?
Not by state law. Your lease can require it as a condition of renting, and most professionally managed Houston complexes do — usually naming a minimum liability limit and asking for proof before you get the keys.
What does renters insurance cover?
Three things: your personal property, your personal liability, and additional living expenses if a covered loss puts you out of the unit. Flood is excluded from all of it — that is a separate contents-only policy.
Does my policy cover my roommate?
Generally no. A policy covers the named insured and household family members, so an unrelated roommate usually needs their own. Carrier rules differ enough that it is worth asking rather than assuming.
Does renters insurance cover flooding?
No. Rising water needs a separate contents-only policy through the National Flood Insurance Program, which covers a tenant’s belongings up to $100,000. Texas law actually requires your landlord to tell you in writing whether the dwelling sits in the mapped 1 percent annual chance floodplain, and that notice says most tenant policies will not cover a flood.
My child is at university in Houston — are their things covered at the dorm?
Often, under a parent’s homeowners or renters policy, at a reduced limit while the student is away at school. Off-campus in their own lease is a different answer, and the cheaper one is usually a policy in the student’s own name. Worth one call rather than an assumption in either direction.
How fast can I get proof of insurance for my landlord?
Usually the same call. Tell us what the lease requires and where the certificate has to go, and we will send it there.