Umbrella Insurance recommendations.

[petershk]

I'm shopping around for umbrella insurance and thought I'd ask you fine people if there is a company you've had a good (or potentially more important, bad) experience with?

Any words of wisdom would also be welcome.
Thanks!

 

[CaliKid]

I believe it has to be with the company that does your underlining policies. That is, I believe they want auto and home with them before they will write an umbrella.

 

[fh2000]

Your umbrella insurance may not need to be the same company with your auto or home. In my case, I first had it in a different company. But, they do require you to meet the liability amount with both auto and home insurance so I had to raise both first (pay a little more premium).

Having it with the same company often would have some discount, so there is a benefit for that. I am with Geico auto first since they gave me discount for being a share-holder. Then I moved umbrella and home to Geico at a later time.

 

[athena53]

I recommend getting it with the company that has the underlying policies. In addition to the possibility of a multi-policy discount, it also means the coverage is "seamless". If your primary auto policy covers you for a rental car that you let your brother-in-law use and he handed to keys to a friend who wrecked it, your Umbrella probably covers that, too. In the case of a really big claim, they'll bring in the best legal minds because they're on the hook for not only the primary coverage but the Umbrella amount. It also means you don't have lawyers from Company A (which write the primary) and Company B (which wrote the umbrella) having to co-ordinate defense.


No specific company recommendations- just get one with a good rating from A.M. Best so you know they'll be around if you need them. The true test of an insurance company is how they handle claims and, hopefully, you'll never need to find that out.

 

[Tailgate]

I have recently moved all of my policies from State Farm (30 years) to USAA. I was able to save about $125 a year and include a 2m umbrella policy within the cost. The umbrella was only $156, but I was required to move the home/auto policies and up the liability coverage in order to qualify for the umbrella...still a good deal. Plus I was able to set up automatic monthly withdrawals without a fee. State Farm homeowners was on an annual payment and auto was every 6 months. I believe they might charge a fee to switch to monthly. YMMV

 

[Dog]

We have a $1M policy with RLI (through our home insurance). We have auto through USAA.
We have sold out primary home with a tentative close date of 6/24. Once the dust settles, I plan to combine car and home in one policy, most likely USAA, but plan to shop around. We do plan to keep an umbrella policy.


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[VFK57]

Umbrella insurance could be purchased from a different than your home / auto insurance but there is usually a discount price on a package. Of course it is better to purchase the insurance through a reputable company.

 

[phil1ben]

Our underlying policy is with Chubb. We get the umbrella through Chubb also but they reinsure through Lloyds of London. You should also check the premiums for different amounts. The cost of more umbrella insurance is relatively small. Also suggest considering higher deductibles. Our preference was for higher deductibles ($10,000.00) and greater coverage. With Chubb once the casualty exceeds $50,000.00 they pay the deductible. Just something to consider.

 

[pb4uski]

Ours happens to be with our home and auto carrier.

One thing I found when I first got our umbrella is that it was cheaper to increase the underlying home and auto liability coverage and get a more modest umbrella than to leave the underlying coverage where they were and get a bigger umbrella, but YMMV.

 

[Dash man]

We keep all underlying insurance and our umbrella with USAA except for a condo in Florida. That had a different underlying coverage but the umbrella is still covered by USAA. The underlying condo policy has a $300k max liability with everything else at $500k. The umbrella cost a little more because of that.


Enjoying life!