Best Umbrella (Liability) Insurance

In a world where unexpected events can turn into costly legal battles, umbrella insurance emerges as a practical solution for added financial security. 

Picture this: A typical family is enjoying a weekend at the park. The kids are playing, and the parents are relaxing, but an unforeseen accident occurs involving a passerby. Suddenly, they find themselves facing potential legal fees and damages that could drain their savings. 

This scenario is not uncommon, and it's where umbrella insurance steps in. It provides an extra layer of protection, beyond standard policies, safeguarding individuals and families from the financial storms that life's unpredictable moments can bring. This coverage is not just a luxury for the wealthy; it's a smart choice for anyone seeking peace of mind in an increasingly litigious society. Read on to explore the best umbrella insurance options to protect your financial future.

• Best Overall Umbrella Insurance: The Hartford
• Best for Home: State Farm - Get an Insurance Quote
• Best for Related Expenses: Travelers - Get an Insurance Quote
• Best for Auto: Allstate - Get an Insurance Quote
• Best for Luxury Items: Chubb - Get an Insurance Quote

Best Umbrella Insurance

An umbrella policy is likely to be the largest insurance policy you own with regard to coverage limits. With $1 million or more in coverage at stake, it’s important to choose the best company for your needs.

1. Best Overall Umbrella Insurance: The Hartford

An umbrella insurance policy through The Hartford can help protect you and your family if someone sues you for damage to their person and your personal liability insurance only covers a portion of the claim. If you exceed your auto insurance policy's property damage liability and/or bodily injury liability limits, you'll also be covered under an umbrella policy through The Hartford. Any guest on your property who incurs medical costs as a result of an incident is also covered under an umbrella policy.

Your personal umbrella insurance policy doesn’t cover every claim. For example, it won’t cover losses related to your business. If you're interested in insuring your business, The Hartford can help with that, too.

To figure out how much umbrella insurance coverage you need, you should estimate the total value of your assets, check your home and auto policies to see whether you have enough coverage and make a list of what items you want to insure that are not included in your standard policy.

2. Best for Home: State Farm

State Farm’s broad market approach as an insurer makes the company a good fit for many households.

With State Farm, you’ll be able to insure most of your risk; available policies include auto, home, boat, umbrella and well-structured business insurance policies.

Having a wide range of coverage available allows you to more easily manage your policies with one agent.

State Farm’s umbrella policy, which the company markets as a Personal Liability Umbrella Policy (PLUP), provides coverage options starting at $1 million, which can be increased in $1 million increments.

Personal injury claims for defamation of character, libel or slander are covered by the policy in addition to bodily injury claims or property damage claims that exceed the limits of your home or auto insurance policies.

3. Best for Related Expenses: Travelers

Travelers offers coverage options ranging from $1 million up to $10 million and is another solid choice when you need more coverage than your home or auto insurance policies provide.

Personal injury claims such as libel, slander, defamation of character and invasion of privacy are covered by the policy, and your coverage follows you wherever you go — anywhere in the world.

Your policy can also help pay the cost of your defense, attorney fees or related expenses.

4. Best for Auto: Allstate

Allstate’s Personal Umbrella Policy (PUP) can cover the excess liability costs resulting from dog bites, playset injuries, driving accidents, boating accidents and more.

Personal injury coverage is included as well, so defamation lawsuits, like those from online comments or reviews, are covered — but you’ll probably still want to be careful about what you say.

Allstate’s PUP even covers lost wages if you can’t work because of court appearances, and the company will arrange and pay for your defense for incidents covered by your policy.

5. Best for Luxury Items: Chubb

For those with more assets to protect, Chubb is a great choice.

Chubb’s umbrella policy, dubbed the Masterpiece excess liability policy, offers coverage options ranging from $1 million up to $50 million.

Personal injury coverage protects you and your family against slander, libel and defamation claims. Defense costs are covered as well, with no cap on the coverage amount for defense costs in most cases.

As a welcome extra, Chubb offers up to $1 million in excess coverage for underinsured or uninsured motorist protection.If another driver without insurance or with insufficient coverage injures you or a person insured by the policy, you’re covered up to the combined limit of your auto and umbrella insurance coverage.

What’s Umbrella Insurance?

Do you remember when you were small and two people — or even more — could fit under an umbrella? An umbrella policy earns its name from its ability to protect more than one policy. Umbrella insurance is excess liability insurance, which means it provides extra coverage.

Liability is everywhere. It’s on roads, in homes and backyards and volunteering activities. Liability follows you wherever you go — even where there is no liability, there’s still a risk of liability lawsuits, which can be expensive to defend.

Liability also comes in different forms and refers to when your actions or inactions cause someone else physical or financial harm. For example, your auto insurance policy has both bodily injury liability coverage and property damage liability coverage. Bodily injury coverage applies if someone else is injured in an auto accident, while property damage liability helps cover the cost of damage to the things you might bump into with your car ‚ other cars, stop signs or buildings.

Your home insurance also covers bodily injury claims and property damage claims. If you decide to finally cut down that old tree in the backyard and it falls on the neighbor’s garage, your property damage liability coverage comes to the rescue. However, the liability coverage from your home insurance policy can’t cover auto accident liability — and vice versa.

For both auto and home insurance, there’s a maximum coverage limit for liability. This amount varies by insurer or by state, but it may not be enough to protect you against the worst-case scenario. That’s where an umbrella policy comes in. The umbrella policy sits above the auto and home insurance policies and can cover losses that exceed the limits of either policy.

For example, if you have an auto policy with $250,000 in bodily injury liability coverage and a home insurance policy with $300,000 in bodily injury liability coverage, a $1 million umbrella policy can extend the coverage limits to $1.25 million and $1.3 million, respectively — and the increased coverage is more affordable than you might think.

Difference Between Umbrella Insurance and Other Types of Insurance

Many umbrella insurance policies add a new type of coverage called personal injury protection, which differs from bodily injury because it deals with cases of defamation, like slander and libel. In today’s online world, where comments can be taken out of context, personal injury liability is a greater risk than ever before — and it’s not covered by a standard home insurance policy.

An umbrella insurance policy is excess insurance, which means the underlying policies react to a claim first.

If the limits of coverage on either the auto or home insurance policy are exceeded, the umbrella insurance policy kicks in and extends the coverage for up to $1 million or $2 million or whatever amount you choose for an umbrella coverage limit. Because neither a home nor auto insurance policy offers personal injury protection, the umbrella policy responds first to personal injury claims.

Other insurance policy types can protect against a wide range of risks, from hail damage to your car to wind damage to your roof to medical costs for a broken leg. An umbrella policy only protects against liability — but the potential for loss can be much higher, which makes this type of coverage extremely valuable.

An important consideration is that award amounts in liability cases aren’t determined by your assets. It’s common to think that if you don’t have many assets, you don’t have much to lose.

But liability judgments can affect your retirement savings, your home or your future earnings through wage garnishments. It’s better to match the umbrella coverage amount to your risks than to your assets.

Umbrella Insurance Cost

Expect to pay about $75 to $400 per year for a $1 million umbrella policy, with the difference in rates often because of rating factors that also affect home or auto insurance rates. Accidents or recent liability claims can play a role in rates as can other rating factors, like your credit report.  Other factors are the number of drivers and cars, age of drivers — under 25 drivers is big — and number of homes or rentals owned. 

The cost of an umbrella policy can be twofold, however. Insurers require minimum liability coverage limits for the underlying policies. For home insurance, you’ll need at least $300,000 in coverage, which is a common coverage limit even for homes without an umbrella policy. For auto insurance, you’ll need to raise your coverage limit if you’re below the threshold for an umbrella policy. Insurers commonly require a bodily injury coverage limit of $250,000 and property damage liability coverage of $100,000 or higher. For most households, this means an increase in the cost of the auto policy as well, which is well worth it should something happen.

How to Get Covered

Getting an umbrella policy is a simple process. However, the underlying coverage on your auto and home insurance policy may have to be increased. While getting a quote on coverage, this is a great time to review your overall insurance strategy.

Umbrella policies are designed to protect your assets and future earnings. Invest some time with an agent to look for coverage gaps elsewhere as well.

An agent can usually quote your policy in minutes and pull information from your existing policies. You may be asked about the activities you engage in as well as the property or vehicles you own, which can include boats or aircraft.

Also, expect questions about pools, trampolines and which breed of dog you own, all of which can affect bodily injury liability risk.

Some insurers or agents may also require that the underlying policies (auto and home) be held with the same insurer as the umbrella policy. In this case, you might benefit from an extra discount for purchasing multiple policies.

Choose the Best Umbrella Insurance Policy

In the old days, agents referred to an umbrella policy as a pool policy, which suggests the policy could insure the additional liability risk that comes with owning a pool. For personal coverage, an umbrella policy is one of the most affordable types of insurance when looking at the cost compared to coverage amounts.

Paired with the best home insurance and best car insurance, most of your insurable personal risks are covered by the addition of an umbrella policy. Be aware, however, that business activity is not covered.

If you volunteer, have kids or guests visit your home or drive — which should include nearly all households — an umbrella policy is an affordable way to protect both your assets and your future earnings.Want to learn more about insurance? Check out Benzinga’s guides to the best cheap car insurance companies, the best life insurance companies and the best home insurance companies.

Frequently Asked Questions