With the arrival of warm, balmy weather, yard sales begin to pop up everywhere. Although a yard sale might transform your spring cleaning chores into a profitable day of getting rid of unwanted items, it can also create a setting for a legal nightmare. For example, you're legally liable if someone at the yard sale slips, trips, or falls and injures themselves. Such scenarios are exactly why you must know what your homeowner's insurance covers before you take on the responsibility of inviting yard sale-goers onto your property.

Most standard Homeowners policies will provide $100,000 dollars worth of liability coverage for property damage or bodily injury that is caused to others by those living in the home. The coverage amount can be used to cover your legal defense and any resulting monetary judgments against you.

No-fault medical coverage is another feature of your Homeowners insurance liability protection. It usually provides between $1,000 to $5,000 dollars worth of coverage. This feature can help you avoid lawsuits from a person injured on your property since it will allow them to directly submit their medical-related bills to your insurer for payment.

The above might seem adequate enough for a yard sale, but given today's litigious mentality...
 

 Many renters mistakenly believe that they don't need Renter's insurance or view it as an expensive luxury. However, insurance needs aren't negated just because one happens to be renting their home.

For those not familiar with Renter's insurance, it's an insurance coverage that protects the renter against property losses from damages like water and fire. It also provides protection for liability risks, such as lawsuits brought by the landlord of the property, pet attacks, falls and slips, and guest accidents. This type of coverage is available in most areas and has an average $20 monthly premium rate for around $500,000 dollars worth of liability coverage and $20,000 dollars worth of property coverage.

Trusted Choice, a network of financial and insurance service firms, recently found in a survey that almost 25 million American home renters didn't have any insurance coverage to protect themselves from losses and that most renters have limited, if any, knowledge of Renter's insurance.

Eight percent of the respondents without Renter's insurance had never heard about Renter's insurance before. Meanwhile, 17% said they weren't aware that they needed Renter's insurance and 26% percent felt that Renter's insurance was too costly.

According to the study, some renters also mistakenly believed...