Hat tip to NGPF Fellow Jill Wilson and her students at Glenwood Springs High School in Colorado for sharing this interactive. It helps renters quickly get a sense for the value of what they own and the amount of renter's insurance they may need. 

The interactive starts by having students walk through each room in their "apartment." They use a slider bar to indicate how spartan or extravagant their room while the interactive estimates the value of the "stuff" in the room. Here's the intro screen:

The four rooms in the interactive are: bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and living room. Once you have an estimate of the value of your stuff in all four rooms, you match that up with your disposable (note that it's disposable, NOT net pay) monthly take-home pay to gauge how long it would take to buy everything in your apartment. 

Go through the simulation several times using scenarios below: 

Scenario 1: "Living the life"

• Maximize the value of your stuff in every room sliding the slider to the far right (should be around $24,000 in TOTAL)
• Set your monthly disposable income at $200/month

Question:

• How long would it take the renter in this scenario to buy all of the stuff in their apartment? 
• What is the expected cost for this person to have renter's insurance? Monthly? Annual? 
• How important do you think it is for this person to have renter's insurance? Why or why not? 

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Scenario 2: The Minimalist lifestyle

• Use the default settings from the interactive; don't touch the sliders. Value of stuff should be around $6,000
• Set monthly disposable income at $1,800

Question:

• How long would it take the renter in this scenario to buy all of the stuff in their apartment? 
• What is the expected cost for this person to have renter's insurance? Monthly? Annual? 
  • Compare to Scenario 1
  • Is there a significant difference in the cost of renter's insurance based on the value of your stuff? 
• How important do you think it is for this person to have renter's insurance? Why or why not? 

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Scenario 3: Create your own scenario

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NGPF resources to pair with this activity:

• Lesson: Home and Renter's Insurance
• Fine Print: Renters Insurance Agreement

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 Note: You can get all of this information for this activity described above without providing identifiable information about yourself. You should end the activity on this screen so students DO NOT click on GET A QUOTE or FIND AN AGENT:

About the Author

Tim Ranzetta

Tim's saving habits started at seven when a neighbor with a broken hip gave him a dog walking job. Her recovery, which took almost a year, resulted in Tim getting to know the bank tellers quite well (and accumulating a savings account balance of over $300!). His recent entrepreneurial adventures have included driving a shredding truck, analyzing executive compensation packages for Fortune 500 companies and helping families make better college financing decisions. After volunteering in 2010 to create and teach a personal finance program at Eastside College Prep in East Palo Alto, Tim saw firsthand the impact of an engaging and activity-based curriculum, which inspired him to start a new non-profit, Next Gen Personal Finance.