Storage

Does Renters Insurance Cover Storage Units?: A Complete Guide

When you’re renting a home, you rarely have the storage space needed to keep all your belongings in your apartment or house. Storage units solve the problem, but of course, they come with issues of their own, such as the risk of fire or burglary.

Having renters insurance is a smart idea, but do you need two policies? Or does renters insurance cover storage units?

Here’s what you need to know.

Does Renters Insurance Cover Storage Units?

Yes, if you buy renters insurance, then it will cover your storage unit.

Every policy is different, but the same rules should apply to your storage unit as your rental unit. That means fire, tornadoes, burglary, and water damage will all fall under your policy.

There are limits. You won’t enjoy the same coverage for both your rental and your unit. Policies typically cap storage unit insurance at 10% of your total policy value. So, if you have $50,000 in renters insurance, then you have $5,000 in coverage for your storage unit.

What Isn’t Covered?

There are a few instances when your policy won’t kick in after an emergency.

First, if you need to claim a result of a flood, earthquake, or pest, then your insurance won’t cover you. You typically need specific flood insurance to protect your possessions.

Second, neither renters nor storage unit insurance cover certain high-value items. Storage unit coverage never includes things like gold, musical instruments, valuable art, or other rare items. If you have jewelry (including expensive wedding rings), then you likely need to add a jewelry insurance rider or seek out insurance policies that cover your valuable items specifically.

There may be other limitation clauses depending on your state and policy provider. Always read the policy in full before deciding on the best storage unit insurance for you.

When Should You Buy Renters Insurance and Storage Unit Insurance?

So, when should you buy both renters and storage unit insurance?

Most people won’t need both, but you might consider looking for two policies if 10% of your policy value doesn’t cover what’s going into storage.

You might find this to be the case if you’re downsizing from a family home into an apartment and keeping the vast majority of your things. In this case, you would have a significant amount of furniture or other items into storage either temporarily or permanently, and $1,000 to $5,000 wouldn’t cover the value your storage unit.

What about storing valuable possessions? As noted before, you typically need policies covering your valuable items specifically or riders that do so rather than buying two of the same policy (renters and storage unit).

Make Sure You Have the Right Cover

Does renters insurance cover storage units? The answer is yes! However, there are policy limits.

If you have unique needs, such as a significant amount of stuff in storage or high-value items, then you’re likely to need multiple policies or riders for full coverage. Make sure you talk to an agent before you sign the dotted line. Because when you have the right cover, you can rest easy.

Are you looking for more helpful content? Visit the finance archive for more money matters.

9 Best Warehouse Storage Solutions and Ideas for an Organized Warehouse

Your warehouse should be setup as efficient and organized as possible.

Not only does organizing your warehouse assist in time management and inventory control, but it restructures the business process. Ordering, storing, pulling and shipping will all be faster. One of the top reasons for cart abandonment is because of extended shipping times.

Not only does this satisfy consumers, but it will keep your employees happy. That’s because an easy to navigate workplace can make the job easier. Keep reading for the 9 best warehouse storage solutions and ideas for an organized warehouse.

1. Create a Smarter Floorplan

Your warehouse’s floorplan should be assessed to ensure it’s running as efficiently as possible. This will help employees fill orders quickly. A smarter plan for your floorplan should do the following:

• Maximize space
• Minimize handling
• Create easier access for inventory
• Be flexible with storage
• Create working spaces

To achieve a smarter floorplan, you must test the physical workflow for employee tasks. This will give you a better understanding of how you can improve workspaces.

2. Consider Shelving and Other Storage Solutions

You can improve storage solutions by adding racks, shelving, and other storage solutions to the warehouse. The size and location of your storage solutions will be based on your business needs. Well-organized warehouse space will help you work smarter without having to work harder.

You can use vertical space to maximize your storage solutions. Choose the tallest shelves and stackable shelf bins for full benefits. This will ensure you’re achieving the best storage solutions possible.

3. Organize Inventory

Once you have your shelves and racks in place, you must focus on how you’ll organize your inventory. Stock can be separated into three categories, depending on movement. For instance, your most profitable items should be easier to pull because it accounts for most of the total movement.

Your second and least important items will be placed in more difficult to pull areas. That’s because they account for less movement. However, there should be ease of access for all items to simplify the process.

4. Label for Improved Organization

Another organization tip is to label everything. The shelves or racks should have labels, as should the products. This will speed along the pulling process for faster shipping.

Labeling everything in your warehouse will be better for safety too. Also, label work areas and safety hazards. Safety signs are crucial for equipment use and warehouse capacity.

5. Accelerate the Pulling Process

You can speed up the pulling process with shelving, storage bins, labels, and a well-thought floorplan. These will help the staff find and pull the right goods as quickly as possible. Along with accelerating the pulling process, they can reduce errors.

Another smart way to speed the process along is to utilize order picking technology. Review your finances to see if there’s room to invest in pick-to-light systems, hand-held RF readers, barcode scanning, or voice picking systems. If it’s not in the budget, consider free systems you can implement.

6. Maintain Warehouse

Once you’ve established a functioning warehouse, you must maintain it. This requires you to continue labeling and efficient storing. It also means keeping the warehouse clean and organized.

Start the workday identifying and fixing the cleanliness issues. Make it required for workspaces to be cleaned, including sweeping the floors and putting tools away. These objectives will increase productivity and safety for your employees.

7. Receive Goods More Efficiently

Improving how you receive goods is about as important as how you pull orders. You can ramp up efficiency in receiving by creating space to sort and store incoming goods. Choose an inventory management system that provides updated information on inventory levels.

Other ways you can help your warehouse workers receive products more efficiently is to unload quickly and safely with forklifts and pallet jacks. Quality control can be improved by identifying and labeling damage upon receiving.

8. Ask Warehouse Workers for Input

The staff knows the ins and outs of the warehouse better than anyone. You should ask for input and suggestions to increase productivity. If they have complaints, hear them out so you can find a solution.

When making changes, be sure to include informing warehouse workers. If there’s a need, consider training or holding a meeting to review the differences. This will help you avoid confusion and delays down the road.

9. Reassess Warehouse Periodically

Setting up and maintain an efficient warehouse includes reassessing needs periodically. This means reviewing inventory management and different warehouse organization systems to improve productivity levels. Check the functional flow path for yourself so you can identify obstacles and remove them.

Reviewing the warehouse’s blueprints will ensure you’re making the most of the available space.
The most important thing is to ensure everything is safely up to code. Regularly scheduled reviews will help you identify which features can be improved.

More Warehouse Storage Solutions Tips

These are only some of the warehouse storage solutions available, but you don’t have to complicate it. The staff should experience a productivity boost without additional stress. You can help eliminate problems by financing improvements.

One of the best improvements you can make to your warehouse is to invest in industrial epoxy coatings. This coating will be able to withstand the abuse warehouse floors experience without breaking the budget. A good installer will be able to patch or repair holes and cracks in the concrete for a smoother surface before the industrial epoxy goes down.

Time to Get Organized

It’s time to get your warehouse organized for better efficiency. This will result in much happier staff and satisfied consumers. You can utilize these 9 best warehouse storage solutions and ideas to achieve an organized warehouse.

Your business can use the best advice and tips to improve efficiency and productivity levels today. If you liked this article and are interested in reading more like it, feel free to browse the rest of our blog.

The Best Ways to Manage Your Cloud Storage

Have you been using cloud storage in your organization?

The cloud is a great tool and has been valuable for everyone utilizing it, especially businesses and IT professionals. But those pesky “storage full” messages aren’t so fun.

What can you do about it?

You could pay for more storage… again? Or be forced to organize and manage your data in different cloud sources? But whose job is it to keep track of all of that?

Those aren’t ideal solutions.

In this article, you’re going to learn the best ways to manage your cloud storage in a way that won’t make you want to pull your hair out.

How to Manage Your Cloud Storage

First, you need to get on cloud storage if you don’t already use it. You can even just start out with simple apps like Dropbox, Google Drive, or OneDrive. These are very easy to get going.

Using cloud storage will ensure your valuable documents and files aren’t lost forever if something unusual should happen… like your hard drive crashes.

Let’s be realistic here, your hard drive will eventually crash and it always happens when you least expected it or when you were just about to finally switch over to that cloud storage space.

Once you’re using cloud storage it is helpful to make sure you don’t have any duplicate files or unnecessary documents taking up space.

You just need to log into the storage application and clean up in there a bit. Again, Dropbox, Google Drive, and OneDrive are easy to navigate.

Maybe you’ve got storage in a few different places and you need a way to organize it all in once space.

Or you need a system to ensure your data is totally safe. Or you really need a good way to enable multiple devices to access the information in your cloud and for multiple employees to access it anytime they need it.

Hybrid cloud storage could help with this.

What is Hybrid Cloud Storage?

Hybrid cloud storage combines all the good reasons to have your documents stored in the cloud while attempting to combat with its shortcomings, like security or latency.

It puts all of your cloud storage into one place so you can easily manage and organize it. There are many options out there.

Finding the Right Management System

Are your documents stored out all over the place, still needing once central home where you know they are safe, organized, and accessible?

Maybe you’re using a storage management system that just isn’t working out for your needs?

Try HubStor, the cloud management system IT leaders choose and trust.

With HubStor you will see a dramatic reduction in storage and backup costs with our tiering, deduplication, and compression systems.

Compared to on-premises storage, our customers spent 76 – 87% less in storage costs.

You can egress and recover your data from our service at any time, we put you in complete control.

And you only pay for what you use.

No contracts. No cancellation fees. Zero lock-ins.

Click here to learn more about Hubstor.