Business Umbrella Insurance
What is umbrella liability insurance?
Without Business Umbrella Insurance (also sometimes called Umbrella Liability Insurance or Excess Liability Insurance ), you would have to pay the uncovered expenses out-of-pocket. Even if you carry General Liability Insurance for your business, without business umbrellainsurance you might face a repair, settlement, or judgment in excess of your coverage limit.
How Does Business Umbrella Insurance Protect Your Business?
For a single premium, a Business Umbrella policy adds another layer of protection to any of several other policies that you might carry, including General Liability, Employer’s Liability, and Hired and Non-owned Auto Liability policies. For instance, if you have $1 million in General Liability coverage and a covered claim is settled for $1.5 million, your Business Umbrella Insurance policy would pick up the $500,000 not covered by your General Liability policy.
How does umbrella liability insurance protect your business?
For a single premium, umbrella liability or excess liability policies add another layer of protection to any of several other policies that you might hold, including general liability, employer’s liability, and hired and non-owned auto liability policies. For instance, if you have $1 million in general liability coverage and a covered claim is settled for $1.5 million, your small business’s umbrella liability insurance policy would pick up the additional amount.
Umbrella Insurance is generally the most affordable way to get higher policy limits on several other small-business insurance policies (the alternative being to raise the limit on each of your other policies individually). However, you should note that an Umbrella policy will not extend coverage limits on an Errors and Omissions or Professional Liability policy.
Do I Need an Umbrella Policy?
As a small-business owner, you may be able to protect more of your assets by investing in an umbrella policy than you would with ordinary insurance. If you face a legal settlement for an amount in excess of your standard insurance, an umbrella policy could protect you from having to drain your bank account and sell your assets to cover the cost.
The main benefit of purchasing Business Umbrella Insurance, rather than opting for higher limits on your existing policies, is that Umbrella Insurance tends to be more cost-effective: you can spend less each month on premium payments to enjoy significantly greater insurance protection. In addition, you can expand your coverage limits on several policies through a single Umbrella policy. For example, instead of investing in higher limits on General Liability, Auto Liability, and Employer’s Liability policies, you could invest in a single Umbrella Liability policy that offers extended coverage on all three.
While some entrepreneurs balk at the prospect of investing in additional coverage, an Umbrella policy is worth considering for many small-business owners.
Why? Equipment, real estate, and other valuable business property is often expensive to replace but crucial to a business owner’s ability to bring in revenue. Umbrella Insurance policies can provide extra coverage that will allow business owners to replace or repair this property if anything should happen to it.
In addition, the number of clients, suppliers, partners, and other business associates business owners come into contact with every day means that they simply face more opportunities for lawsuits than the average person. Business Umbrella Insurance offers an extra safety net in case one of those people brings a costly lawsuit.
If you deal with high-net-worth individuals during the course of your business operations, your business may be especially well suited for Umbrella Insurance. This is because a wealthy person who wins a suit for lost wages because of an injury, for example, would be entitled to much more money than a less wealthy individual.
If you are uncertain about whether or not your business could benefit from Umbrella coverage, ask an expert. Your insurance agent can help you decide whether Business Umbrella Insurance makes sense for your business.
Compare Business Umbrella Insurance Costs and Quotes
Think your business might benefit from Business Umbrella Insurance coverage? Fill out our short online application, and receive free quotes for Umbrella Insurance. You can compare the costs of various Umbrella policies at your leisure or speak with an weinsurexyz agent to determine which policy makes the most sense for your business.