What Do You Get With an Umbrella Policy?

San Fernando Valley Real Estate Podcast with Scott Himelstein

Have you considered an umbrella policy as a homeowner? I'm joined by an expert to help me explain what you get with this type of coverage.

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Umbrella policies are extremely important if you own a home or rental property. To help me explain why, I'm joined today by Zachary Schneiderman of Schneiderman Insurance Agency.

An umbrella policy adds liability coverage on top of underlying policies. So if you have auto and homeowners insurance, they each have their standard liability limits. The umbrella policy requires a certain minimum amount of liability underlying it. It usually adds on in $1 million increments over your home and auto. It's about $300 a year for two cars and a home, which isn't that much money to spend for a lot of liability coverage.

If you have an auto accident or an accident at home, that liability you carry isn't always enough when you think about the catastrophes that can happen. Any sort of accident in your home can bring liability against you as the homeowner. An example would be someone getting hurt on the diving board if you have a pool. That's why you want to be sure you have enough protection to hopefully settle the matter with the other party.

An umbrella policy adds liability coverage on top of underlying policies.

Another reason an umbrella policy is so important is for things like getting sued after an auto accident.

If you don't have enough insurance and someone is severely injured in an accident, the medical costs and pain and suffering costs awarded by the court can be well above the $250,000 you have as your limit of your auto policy. An umbrella policy provides you that extra money for a very cheap price and gives you the ability to have an insurance company step in and defend you and settle the matter so that nobody comes after your assets. If you don't have enough money on your auto policy in this example, they're going to go somewhere else to find the rest or if.

If you're a landlord and have rental property, the umbrella policy is really a no-brainer. Anything you own as a personal liability policy—home, auto, motorcycle, boat, jet skis, etc.—you can have under your umbrella policy. You can have a rental property under it as long as it's four units or fewer. It becomes a little bit more expensive for every unit you add on, but you add that liability with one policy over all of those other elements you own and give yourself a lot more protection. Remember, when you're in those positions, you likely have more assets.

It's not a lot of money to add that liability. It's a simple solution to giving you peace of mind no matter what instance comes up. As Zachary says, they don't know what claims will be brought against you, they just know that there's always the potential.

If you have any questions about these policies, you can reach Zachary at [phone] or visit his website.

As always, if you have any real estate questions, don't hesitate to give me a call or send me an email. I'm always happy to help!