You are a genuinely good person. You have no desire to hurt others, and you would likely never do anything on purpose to harm someone. Still, situations can arise, and we are part of a litigious culture where individuals can—and will—sue. Fortunately, you can help protect your assets and the life you’ve worked so hard to build with umbrella insurance.
Imagine these scenarios:
- Your neighbor’s kids come over to play on the trampoline with your kids. One falls off and tragically breaks his back. His parents sue, and the judge awards them $250,000 in damages.
- You are driving down a street in a neighborhood and a child rides her bike out in front of you. You have no time to stop and you hit her. She hits your bumper and windshield before landing on the pavement. Because she is not wearing a helmet, she suffers serious head injuries. Some witnesses say she did not look before riding her bike into traffic and support the fact that you had no time to stop, but the family is awarded $500,000 in damages.
In some instances, umbrella insurance can help provide coverage above what your underlying liability limits on your auto or homeowners policies provide. In the first scenario, if your liability limit on your homeowners policy is $100,000, you may have to come up with the remaining $150,000. Similarly, in the second scenario, if your auto liability limit for bodily injury is only $250,000 and it provides that coverage, you may owe $250,000. If you purchase umbrella insurance, some, or maybe even all or the remaining amount could be covered. Some umbrella policies will even help cover your legal fees. Of course, as with any kind of insurance, the amount of coverage your umbrella policy provides depends on the facts of the claim and the details of your policy.
Shelter Insurance® offers an umbrella policy that could provide you with $1 million in coverage or more, which is much higher than the usual limits of your home and auto policies. You might be wondering why you would need a million dollars or more in liability coverage. Higher coverage limits can ease your mind when you’ve been served with a lawsuit that looks like it could break your bank. The truth is that big accidents happen, even to good people, and court and settlement costs can be astronomical.
If you don’t want to face the possibility of having to deal with the above scenarios, consider talking to local Shelter Insurance® agent Mike Messer about umbrella coverage. Hopefully nothing like this will ever happen to you, but wouldn’t it be good to have the peace of mind umbrella coverage can help provide if it does?
Shelter Life Insurance Company, 1817 West Broadway, Columbia, MO 65218
