Medical payments coverage is typically limited to your premises. MedPay activates when someone is injured on your rental property. It does not typically follow you off-premises.
What this means practically:
- Guest injured in your apartment: liability + MedPay apply
- You injure someone at a park through your negligence: liability applies (no MedPay)
- Guest injured in your car: auto insurance, not renters
- Guest injured in a shared building hallway: landlord’s liability, not yours (unless you created the hazard)
- Guest injured at a rented Airbnb vacation you are hosting: likely not covered renters insurance covers your primary residence, not temporary hosted locations
Always check your specific policy declarations page. Some carriers explicitly describe the geographic scope of liability coverage in Section II of the policy.
How Much Renters Liability Coverage Do You Actually Need?
The standard answer $100,000 is the minimum, not the recommendation.
The average renters insurance policy with $100,000 liability and $40,000 property coverage costs $23 per month, or $270 per year (Insurance.com, January 2026). Increasing that liability limit to $300,000 adds approximately $18 per year or $1.50 per month to the same policy. For three times the legal protection at essentially the same cost, $300,000 should be the starting point for most renters, not the maximum.