What do automotive, homeowners, and many other policy types have in common? Well, you can never be 100% certain whether they’ll provide you with enough coverage if you’re faced with a major lawsuit.

Each of these policy types works well on an average day with an average accident, but if you end up in a situation where you’re facing serious legal fees, you’re going to need additional coverage. And when that happens, you have two options: you can either try to increase the policy coverage amounts for each one of your policy types, or you can invest in one personal umbrella insurance policy.

What Is Umbrella Insurance?

Umbrella insurance, also known as personal liability insurance, is an extra layer of insurance you can purchase to fill in the gaps where your other policies leave off. It also provides extra coverage types that may not be included in other policies you hold. 

Typically, it works to bolster homeowners and automotive policies, but it can also benefit numerous other policy types to cover legal fees, medical expenses, and other damages that are above what your traditional insurance options cover.

What Does Personal Umbrella Insurance Cover?

Umbrella insurance protects you and your family against a wide range of damages by providing funds that exceed the limits of many of your other policies. And because it supplements such a wide range of policy types, it covers numerous problems you may face. Specifics will, of course, differ between policies, but there are a few damages and claim types that most umbrella policies should be able to protect you from.

Personal Injury Lawsuits

If you’re involved in the physical or mental injury of another person whether intentionally or as the result of negligence, you may be faced with a personal injury lawsuit. An umbrella policy can help you cover the cost of any damages awarded to the other party as well as help you with legal fees for the case. For example, if your pet attacks a neighbor and the neighbor sues you to cover their medical bills and lost wages, umbrella insurance would help cover those costs.

Damage to Another Person’s Property

Similarly, if you damage another person’s property, umbrella insurance can also step in to help.  An example of this could be if you’re throwing a baseball around with your son, and a catch is missed causing the ball to smash into your neighbor’s car window. An umbrella policy would then help cover the costs of repairs and possibly a rental vehicle for the neighbor while the car was being fixed.

Assorted Lawsuits

There are several additional lawsuit types that umbrella insurance can help you with. These include defamation suits and lawsuits relating to libel, slander, and invasion of privacy. Additional suit types could even include false imprisonment or landlord liability.

Associated Legal Costs

If you face a lawsuit where you are being required to pay damages, a personal umbrella insurance policy will typically cover any legal fees you have associated with the suit, even if the cost of your legal fees exceeds your covered limit. This means that if you have $500,000 in liability coverage and you lose a suit for the full amount, your policy will cover both the $500,000 and your legal defense.

Incidents that Happen Abroad

If you are involved in an accident, damage the personal property of another person, or have any other claim types brought against you while you’re outside of the United States, your umbrella policy should be able to help cover fees and damage costs.

Why Personal Umbrella Insurance Is Important

There are many reasons why umbrella insurance is so important to invest in. It works to protect your assets and finances, provides you with peace of mind, covers legal fees, and can even work to protect your charity work. Let’s look more closely at each of these benefits to get a better understanding about why personal umbrella insurance is so great.

Helps Protect Your Assets

When you have personal umbrella insurance, you have a safety net that is constantly working to protect your assets. These can include your finances in checking and savings accounts, retirement accounts, investments, your car, your house, and even your future income.

Provides Peace of Mind

Perhaps one of the best benefits of an umbrella policy is that it provides you with peace of mind. The policy works to provide you with coverage not only for incidents and lawsuits you may already be aware of but also for those that you would never have expected to happen.

Covers Legal Fees

When it comes to lawsuits, one of the biggest expenses that people often don’t think about when purchasing their insurance policies is the cost of legal fees. Hiring a solid defense team is not cheap, and no matter the outcome of your trial, they have to be paid. Fortunately, an umbrella policy covers all of these fees for you so you don’t have to worry about them at all.

Protects Your Charity Work

If you’re actively involved with your community’s nonprofit, charitable, religious, or civic organizations, the majority of umbrella policies will provide you with coverage if anything happens while you’re volunteering.

Get Personal Umbrella Insurance Today

Personal umbrella insurance policies provide individuals with a wide range of benefits, not the least of which is peace of mind against potential lawsuits and accidents you never saw coming. They work where other policies can’t and provide you with supplemental insurance that applies not just to one specific policy type, but to a wide range of options to ensure you get the most for your money. 

If you’re considering investing in a personal umbrella insurance policy, don’t wait–call us and Harrah & Associates today to speak with one of our agents.