It had all the makings a perfect weekend--beautiful San Francisco weather and a free music festival in Golden Gate Park all weekend long. Until, returning from the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival on Friday night when my backpack was stolen!
Here’s what happened. I ran into my apartment, while my husband locked up our bikes in the basement. He left our basement door propped open while locking up one of the bikes (which opens to the street) and left our backpack by the doorway along with my bike. Within 2 minutes the backpack was stolen.
The bag contained multiple items of value, plus a few random items. My iPhone 4s (thankfully my 6 was already ordered and on the way), my wallet (license & credit cards) and 2 pairs of Tom Ford sunglasses, which each retail for just under $500! Oh, the sunglasses part hurt the worst (pictured in above photo, just hours before the theft!).
The next day I filed a police report online. It was pretty simple, and I had to estimate the various items and the value. I valued the total amount of the items lost around $1700! Considering, I’ve never been robbed, this felt like a big deal to me. Not to mention, it definitely put a damper on my perfect weekend.
Next step, I needed to file my first renters insurance claim. I Googled how to file a claim through my specific carrier and found a link and clicked. I basically took the policy number from my records and entered it along with all of the details of the theft. This was a Sunday. Later that day, I received an email letting me know I would be receiving a check for $1200 if my claim were approved--just $500 short of my estimate. Not bad, considering I expected nothing.
The next Monday, I received a call from my insurance company just to go over the details of my claim, and the agent approved it right away. My personal agent then followed up to see if I had any additional questions.
Getting robbed was the worst, but having renters insurance pretty much saved me and almost fully covered the amount of lost goods. I’ll definitely be more cautious of my surroundings and will strongly recommend to others the value of having a renters insurance policy!
