It’s renewal time and my agent has proposed two different 12-month umbrella policies.
1 - For $232: $1,000,000 coverage
2 - For $433: $1,000,000 coverage for 12 months including $1,000,000 uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage. “Progressive will pay for medical bills, lost wages and pain and suffering resulting from bodily injuries when you’re in an accident caused by a driver who either doesn’t have any, or doesn’t have enough, liability coverage.”
Any thoughts?
Thanks,
mmm
Umbrella policies are one of the few bargains in the insurance industry. Rarely needed, but a godsend when you do. I recommend. Especially if offered on UIM, as you describe. There are a lot of underinsured drivers on the road, and a few of them cause catastrophic injuries.
Ya know, you’re right. I think I’m already convinced. I don’t drive as much as I used to, but I still see apparently-immortal assholes zipping in and out of freeway traffic on the regular.
But then…wouldn’t my “regular” insurance cover me if the fool who put me in the hospital is uninsured?
(I’m guessing it wouldn’t cover me enough)
mmm
yes, probably for medical bills (if you mean health insurance by “regular insurance.”) But you don’t get “pain and suffering” or economic loss compensated. I’ve seen far too many people killed or seriously injured by drivers with $25,000 or $50,000 of insurance. Even $1M won’t make it right, but it can put a dent in the situation.
Yeah, but make sure you are clear about what the insurance carrier considers to be an “uninsured motorist”. Several years ago I was rear-ended by a police cruiser (because the officer was fucking around on his phone or terminal instead of paying attention to the yellow light that I stopped for because I had a police cruiser on my bumper), and the city (which was ‘self-insured) tried variously to claim that I was at-fault (for not running a red light), impairing the officer in the performance of their duties (by stopping at a stop light?), and ultimately ‘sovereign immunity’. Since the city had no insurance carrier there wasn’t anyone for my carrier to deal with and for whatever reason they didn’t want to sue the municipality, they paid to repair damages but refused to cover medical or loss of time even though they forced me to get an MRI before allowing me to get rental car coverage. My insurance carrier also claimed that these were outside of uninsured motorist coverage because the city was technically (self-)insured, and I ended up having to get my own lawyer to threaten suit before the city would settle covering my medical and renumeration to my insurer so my rates wouldn’t go up.
So…read through the policy coverage carefully and ask clarifying questions. Don’t just trust that a carrier will actually do anything for you that isn’t explicitly laid out in the declarations.
Stranger
Yes. And get a lawyer if they screw with you on a valid claim. Also, many umbrella policies do not cover UIM, and that’s important to know.
Also, the way UIM operates in different states varies. In California, I think, it only covers the gap. In Washington it floats on top of the third-party coverage. In other words, if you have $2M in damages and the guy who did it had a $300,000 policy, you could collect only $700,000 on your UIM. In Washington, you could get his $300,000 and the full $1M from your policy.
Without knowing what UIM coverage the OP has on their base car insurance policy(ies) it’s hard to say whether they’re buying redundant coverage for the extras $~200 or not.
I’d be especially wary about buying umbrella coverage from a different carrier than the base policies. Lots of room for opposite-direction fingerpointing in that case.
Following up on these excellent points, the type of coverage makes a bit difference. If you have a split limit policy (the traditional 100/300 per person / per accident) as an example, I’d put more emphasis on the “yes” choice for the UM/UIM umbrella. Because I rarely have more than one person, two at most in the car, and the lower “per person limit” leaves me less covered. If you have a CSL (combined single limit) you technically have less total coverage, but a lot more can be applied to a single person or vehicle if needed. So I’d probably (budget permitting) go with the umbrella UM coverage with a 300 CSL (normally priced the same as the 100/300/100 mentioned) but I -might- feel okay if I had a 500 CSL (normally priced the same as 250/500/100).
Nipick: remuneration.
I don’t have any thoughts about your specific policy question, but I am not a huge believer in umbrella policies for two reasons:
So, I suggest them for all. Protect you while driving, walking, someone tripping and breaking their leg on the sidewalk outside your house, etc.
Nitpick: Nitpick
Lol! That’ll teach me to type on my phone without double-checking my work!
I don’t think you mentioned it, but I assume you get auto and homeowner’s insurance from the same company? Because my understanding is that umbrella policies cover both. I had a co-worker with cars, a house, an RV and motorcycles and the umbrella policy covered him for any of that.
Correct.
I think you mean you are a huge believer, correct?
mmm
Nitpick:
Yes! I should proofread before hitting submit.
I feel lousy for not having come up with that one myself.
However prices are rising as it has become more and more the norm for them to be invoked. Mine shot up substantially in cost this year. Still worth it, though.
I recently got an umbrella policy, because after 15 years of being a landlord, I decided I probably should be protected if my tenant decides to sue me because they fall in the bathroom, or something.
The umbrella policy itself is not expensive, but my insurance carrier required that I max out the liability coverage on all of my other policies before they would write the umbrella policy. So in one way of thinking about it, the umbrella policy was considerably more expensive than just that single line item on my total insurance bill.
I hope all of the money I spend on it is completely wasted, but it’s also not too much to spend to make sure I still have a retirement account if the Amazon driver slips on my icy driveway.
As to the OP, is the UIM coverage in addition to, or instead of the UIM coverage on your car insurance? That seems really cheap if it replaces the UIM coverage on your existing car insurance.
To add another twist, if the OP has multiple vehicles, there may be the option to stack UM coverage. As I understand it, if one has multiple vehicles, the UM coverage for each vehicle can be used for an incident that involves one of the covered vehicles. So if the insured has three vehicles each with a $100K UM policy, the actual UM coverage available is 3X, or $300K.
Both UM and umbrella insurance are good ideas because they insure you, and not someone else. For that reason I have both an umbrella policy, and stacked UM on the 4 vehicles I have. I did reduce the amount of UM insurance for each vehicle, knowing that I actually have 4 times that amount due to stacking the coverage. It was just a matter of comparing the cost of the UM insurance vs how much I think I would need.
I would ask if stacked coverage is available in your state. I don’t know if is available everywhere or not. And if you only have one vehicle, then it doesn’t apply.