Is My Mom or Girlfriend Covered Under My Home Insurance?

Resident Relatives or Unrelated Household Members

You may often wonder what individuals living in your household are covered on your homeowner policy, so let us take a minute to cover some of that information for you.

Who is a resident relative?

Any household members that are relatives by blood, marriage or adoption to the named insured are resident relatives.  This would also include anyone under the age of 21 who are not a relative by blood but are in the fulltime care of the insured.  For example foster children would be resident relatives on the insured’s policy.  These individual’s belongings would be covered under the named insured’s home policy in event of a loss.

Who are unrelated household members?

A non-related individual living in your household would be unrelated household members.  A boyfriend/girlfriend, fiancée, roommate or friend would be examples.  These individual’s would not automatically be covered by named insured’s home policy.  An endorsement would need to be added to insured’s home policy for these individual’s belongings to be covered in an event of a loss.

So let’s take a look at this for a minute.  Say you got engaged and your fiancée moved into your home with you and brought her belonging’s (clothes, furniture, and personal items) with her.  Sometime there after you have a house fire and some of her belongings are destroyed in the fire.  Her items are not covered on your homeowner’s policy and would not be replaced.  But if when she moved in you added an endorsement to your policy to cover her belongings they would be replaced.

However let’s say your parent isn’t doing well and are not able to live on their own.  You move your parent in with you to take care of them.  Your parent brings belongings with them.  If for some reason you have a loss and their items are damaged they would be replaced since they are a resident relative related by blood.

Let us help you make sure everyone is protected, call or visit the location nearest you or email us your questions and an insurance professional will reply promptly.