I used to work for a major personal and commercial insurance company for about 6 years.

It is absolutely worth it if you have any type of assets, and even if you don't. When I worked in customer service people used to say to me "but I don't own anything" and I'd reply "And you never will if your wages get garnished".

When I worked in the claims department I had many friends who had to call someone up after a serious car accident and tell them they were losing their house to pay for the damages.

The going rate for critically injuring or killing someone in a car accident is at least $1 million. That's what all of my fatalities cash reserves were set for and what many of them wound up paying out.

For around a couple hundred bucks a year it's something everyone should have.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ryan81986,

I have one. They're not very expensive and it's better than losing everything you own due to an accident or lawsuit.

I have a $1 million umbrella policy in addition to my auto and homeowners policies. It is cheap insurance for the added protection.

Depending upon your assets, definitely.

I have owned one for decades.

I need to revisit this. I have USAA for home & auto. I have my 67 GTO insured with a classic car company, Hagerty. USAA will NOT underwrite an umbrella policy because I have the Hagerty policy on my GTO. Very frustrating.

I've had one from State Farm since the 80's. It ups my liability coverage on every policy. What I didn't realize was it also at the time covered my boat which was covered under Allstate.

Currently I'm paying $185.00 a year. I'm guessing they developed the rates based on assets.

An Umbrella is liability insurance that is excess to your auto and homeowners liability coverage. It will usually cover the same things. It will also usually cover things like damages arising from breach of contract, personal injury (libel and slander) and some liability arising from public office (ie being on the board of a HOA).

However, Umbrella will usually not provide additional Uninsured or Underinsured Motorist Coverage. Some policies will, but most don't.

Umbrellas usually don't cover liability arising from an insured's business. (There's business insurance you are supposed to have for that.)

Also, most Umbrella policies won't pay an insured. An insured is usually the named insured, his or her spouse IF a resident of the same household, and a family member (those related to you by blood, marriage, adoption, and/or ward who reside in the same household). So, for instance, if you are in a single vehicle accident and injure your wife or kids, it won't pay their injuries, because they are insureds under the policy. If your non-resident neighbor is with you and injured, it will pay them.

Some people think an Umbrella covers everything. It doesn't. There are some pretty significant exclusions in an Umbrella policy. Read it before you buy it. If it doesn't cover what you want to be covered for, it's probably not needed.

How do you shop for one of these? Go through car insurance?

Let’s say I make $100k a year, wife, two kids, house, two cars, what am I shopping for?

Standard is 1M. I have State Farm for home and auto, and with them you have increase the auto liability to 250/500 to get the 1M umbrella. Costs about $200 and change per year so it's a no brainer.

Ours just jumped from $350 to $870 for the same coverage $2M. Not going to renew.

I got one when the first of my three boys started driving.

I kept it to protect my house and other assets and have upped it to $2M. As far as insurance goes, it's cheap protection.

My lawyer said always get the umbrella

quote:

Originally posted by 1967Goat:
I need to revisit this. I have USAA for home & auto. I have my 67 GTO insured with a classic car company, Hagerty. USAA will NOT underwrite an umbrella policy because I have the Hagerty policy on my GTO. Very frustrating.

I have been with USAA since 1972. I have home, auto and umbrella policy with them. I own some collector cars that I insure with the USAA Collector Car underwriter, and have no problem keeping my umbrella. The USAA Collector Car group is American Collectors Insurance......you might want to check them out....or not.

I recently got umbrella coverage with USAA. Sounds like it wasnt a bad idea especially in my line of work.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Anubismp,

quote:

Originally posted by BadDogPSD:
Ours just jumped from $350 to $870 for the same coverage $2M. Not going to renew.

Shop it around rather than dumping it all together.

I too have USAA. As a result of reading this thread, I decided to add a $1M umbrella policy. To get this, USAA required me to increase my auto liability/UM to $300/500/100 and a minor change to my homeowners policy. All of this added ~$5/month. The Umbrella policy itself is about $150/year. All this was simply done online.

Yeah I called in about home insurance but they suggested it for about $5 extra a month. Why not would be the better question at that point.