Commercial Umbrella insurance
Do you Need An Umbrella Policy for your Business?
One major lawsuit or catastrophic claim can exceed the limits of your standard business insurance policies. When that happens, your business could be responsible for the remaining costs. Commercial Umbrella or Excess Liability insurance provide an additional layer of financial protection when covered claims go beyond the limits of your underlying liability policies.
Whether you own a small business, manage a growing company, or operate a large organization, an Umbrella or Excess Liability policy can help protect your business assets, reputation, and future from unexpected, high cost claims.
At Get Help With Insurance, Inc., we work with multiple top-rated insurance companies to help businesses secure the additional liability protection they need. We’ll review your current insurance program, identify potential coverage gaps, and recommend a solution that fits your industry, level of risk, and budget.
As your business grows, so does your exposure to risk. Make sure your liability protection grows with it.
Contact us today for a free commercial umbrella or Excess Liability insurance review and quote. Let us help you protect everthing you’ve worked so hard to build.
WHY CONSIDER COMMERCIAL UMBRELLA INSURANCE?
- Adds liability protection above your primary policy limits.
- Helps protect your buisness assets from large lawsuits
- Can provide additional coverage over commercial general liability, commercial auto liability, or employers liability.
- May be beneficial for businesses with company vehicles or fleets, multiple employees, high-value contracts, frequent customer interactions, or significant assets to protect
What is Primary Coverage
Primary coverage is insurance coverage under which liability applies (or, in insurance parlance, “attaches”) immediately upon the happening of an accident or event (called an “occurrence”) that gives rise to liability. Primary insurance provides an initial or beginning layer of protection either on a first-dollar basis or after the application of a self-insured retention or a deductible.
The dollar amount necessary to exhaust the underlying limit and thereby trigger the secondary policy’s coverage is called the “attachment point.” In other words, the primary policy limits must be completely paid out so that there is no insurance left in the primary layer before the secondary policy steps in to provide further coverage.The Builders Risk Program by one of our carriers offers coverage for residential and commercial projects valued up to $75 Million.
Example of how a business umbrella policy would work
Let’s say one of your employees gets into a car accident while making a delivery to a customer. The property damage and bodily injury costs exceed your business’ commercial auto liability limits. If you don’t have a commercial umbrella policy, you’d have to pay the amount that exceeds your policy limit, putting your business at financial risk. That’s why it’s important to have umbrella coverage.
What is Umbrella (horizontal) Coverage
Business Umbrella/“Horizontal” Insurance Coverage Excess (or “vertical”) coverage can be defined as additional liability limits for a claim that is covered by an underlying primary policy. That means a claim that is not covered by a primary insurance policy would not be covered for purposes of the excess policy, either. In contrast, some secondary insurance policies reach out and cover more types of claims arising from more exposures than the ones covered by the underlying primary policy.
For example, suppose the primary policy excludes liability claims arising out of a particular kind of drug made by the insured, but the secondary policy covers any kind of product liability claim, even ones arising from that drug. In that situation, the primary insurer would not cover such drug claims, but the secondary insurer would. A secondary insurance policy’s providing coverage for “extra” claims can be thought of as “moving over” to cover additional risks that are not covered by the primary policy. A secondary policy that “spreads out” and provides coverage for additional types of claims that are not covered by the underlying is like an umbrella that opens up to protect a person from raindrops. That is why secondary policies that provide coverage for additional claims are called “umbrella” policies.
What is Excess (Vertical) Coverage
Excess/“Vertical” Coverage For claims that are covered by the primary policy, “excess coverage” is the additional coverage provided by the secondary policy above the primary policy’s limit. After the primary insurer pays its entire limit and exhausts the available coverage in the primary layer, the secondary policy takes over and provides additional coverage up to the amount of the secondary policy limit.
Excess coverage can be therefore thought of as coverage provided by an additional policy that simply raises the policyholder’s liability limit by an additional amount.
What is Follow Form?
Follow Form Excess Coverage “Follow form” coverage describes the situation where the secondary policy provides insurance with exactly the same terms and conditions as the primary policy (also called the “followed policy”). Follow form provisions simply state that the secondary policy will provide coverage according to the exact same terms, conditions, and exclusions as the primary policy. Providing exactly the same coverage in the secondary layer is beneficial because it minimizes the chances that a claim might not be covered by the secondary policy. True follow form excess policies only need to be a couple of pages long, relying on the followed policy for most of their governing terms.
What is Self-Insured Retention?
Self-Insured Retention is a dollar amount specified in a liability insurance policy that must be paid by the insured before the insurance policy will respond to a loss.
aka. deductible
How Much Umbrella Insurance Do I Need?
Having too much liability insurance is better than having too little. Use our calculator to determine how much umbrella coverage is right for you. It’s wise to have at least enough liability insurance to cover your net worth. Your Net Worth is Assets minus Liabilities.
There are too many lawyer commercials in our valley. Give our office a call to investigate the opportunities to get more liability coverage.
This is intended as a general description of certain types of insurance and services available to qualified customers. Any description of policy provisions is meant to give a broad overview of coverages and does not revise or amend a policy. Refer to the policy coverage form for a complete representation of the scope of coverage, terms, conditions, exclusions and more. The policy is the contract that specifically and fully describes your coverage. Some products may not be available in all states and may only be offered on a non admitted basis. Product availability is subject to change.
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