Umbrella insurance coverage provides additional liability limits over your home, auto, or business insurance. It can also help cover your defense costs. Anyone can bring a lawsuit against you by claiming injuries that are physical, emotional, financial, or if you’ve damaged someone else’s property.
Claim Scenarios
You can be sued if:
- Someone is injured at your home, whether you own it or are renting it.
- You or your child makes disparaging remarks online or does something irresponsible.
- You or a family member are in a severe accident.
- You were ever a youth coach and are being accused of…
- There was an alcohol related incident after your gathering.
- Your tenant claims “brain injury” from your building.
- There is malicious prosecution.
- There is a watercraft related incident.
- There are pet related injuries.
- Something goes wrong at a child’s party (e.g., bouncy house accident).
- An invited worker is injured on your property (e.g., falls off a ladder).
- A customer is injured at your place of business.
- Your manufactured and/or sold products cause injury or damage.
- Your construction employee makes a wrong move with a high-powered tool, causing damage to your client’s home.
- Another business sues your business for copyright infringement.
Large Lawsuits
In the world today, anyone can be sued, even if they did nothing wrong. Large lawsuits and nuclear verdicts are becoming more common. A nuclear verdict is an exceptionally large settlement that surpasses a reasonable settlement. Large lawsuits and nuclear verdicts are driven by social inflation and third-party litigation funding.
Social inflation is the trend of juries awarding higher than normal settlements to injured parties.
Third-party litigation funding is a multibillion-dollar speculative investment industry that allows financiers to invest in lawsuits in exchange for a percentage of settlement judgments. This concept is very new and has little to no regulation.
Hopefully, you will never be faced with nuclear lawsuits, but even a car accident could be financially devastating. It is common for new vehicles to cost over $100,000 and for personal injuries sustained in accidents to exceed $1,000,000.
Umbrella insurance coverage will help protect the assets you have worked for as well as your future earnings and assets. Whether you have personal insurance or business insurance, we urge you to revisit your limits of liability.
Does An Umbrella Insurance Policy Cover Damage To Your Property?
Personal umbrella insurance does not cover damage to your property. This type of policy is meant to protect you if there is a liability claim against you.
Additional Considerations
If you already have an umbrella policy, adding an extra million or more should be a consideration. Also, verify you have underinsured motorist (UM) and uninsured motorist (UIM) coverage on your umbrella policy. UM and UIM coverages provide protection for you if someone with no auto insurance or inadequate auto liability limits injures you.
Please contact us to chat about an umbrella policy. You may be surprised at the low cost to add one.
