Don't insure everything, just the things you might mind losing

A new national survey commissioned by Allstate Insurance revels college-aged adults are acquiring things at a prodigious pace.

However, protecting those things is of little concern -- to themselves of the parents who support them.

In the study, almost half of respondents (48 percent) reported belongings worth more than $10,000 and 87 percent reported they could only afford to replace, at best, some of their things.

Despite this, nearly two-thirds (63 percent) had no insurance protection and 64 percent said it wasn't likely they would purchase renters insurance anytime soon.

In perhaps the best illustration of misplaced priorities, almost one third of respondents (29 percent) reported spending $100-$250 on clothes during any given month, which is roughly what insurance costs for an entire year.

A Bureau of Justice Statistics survey of households shows renters are 50 percent more likely to be burglarized than homeowners. This is yet another sobering reminder of how precarious the situation is for so many Americans opting to go without renters coverage.

The need for education is clear: Almost one third of respondents (32 percent) believed renters insurance to be as much as 15 times higher than the actual national average of $16 per month. Overall, 78 percent of respondents had misperceptions about the true cost of renters insurance.

To underscore how education helps to address this current trend, eight out of 10 of those surveyed without renters insurance at the outset, expressed interest in buying insurance once they learned basic information about the coverage.

About the Survey

The national survey is composed of 1,078 weighted interviews and a 201 student oversample. Interviews were collected between July 25 and Aug. 6, 2009, using Internet and cell phone samples. All participants are young adults who rent their home or apartment and are between the ages of 18 and 30. Student oversamples were collected in California, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania and Texas. All surveys were conducted by Squier Knapp Dunn and Beck Research for Allstate.