Though many personal insurance policies offer coverage for legal issues, sometimes their built-in limits just aren’t high enough. In the event you get slapped with a particularly ugly and costly lawsuit, you may need additional liability protection. Fortunately, a Florida independent insurance agent can get you equipped with the right umbrella insurance to protect you against huge legal claims. But first, check out this guide to umbrella coverage and how it works.

What Is Umbrella Insurance?

Regardless of where you live, personal umbrella insurance essentially stacks on top of other kinds of policies, like Florida homeowners insurance or Florida auto insurance, to extend your liability coverage. Once the underlying policy’s liability limit has been exhausted, umbrella coverage kicks in to cover remaining costs. Though many standard personal policies come with limits in the hundred thousands, personal umbrella policies generally come with limits of $1 million.

What Does Umbrella Insurance Cover in Florida?

Personal umbrella policies in Florida help cover extremely costly liability claims that may result in numerous legal fees or medical expenses. The main coverages umbrella policies stack on top of are homeowners insurance, auto insurance, or watercraft insurance.

The two main ways umbrella policies protect you are by:

• Extending your personal liability limits: Insurance companies like to say that umbrella policies “stack on top of” the underlying personal policies to add more liability coverage. For example, if your homeowners insurance policy comes with a $300,000 liability limit and you purchase an umbrella policy with a $1 million limit, you’ve now increased your liability coverage to $1.3 million. So, any covered incidents that exceed your old homeowners liability limit are now protected up to that new amount.
• Covering more territory than personal policies: Insurance policies come with “coverage territories,” or in other words, areas where your coverage is active. For many standard homeowners, watercraft, and auto policies, the territories covered are typically the US, Puerto Rico, and Canada. Umbrella policies, however, extend coverage worldwide. So if you end up with causing an accident overseas, your umbrella policy can cover you where your personal policy couldn’t.

Just like an umbrella is used to protect you against gloomy natural elements like Florida’s hurricanes, umbrella insurance policies exist to protect you against a downpour of extensive liability claims.

What Does Umbrella Insurance Not Cover in Florida?

The thing is, umbrella policies aren’t standard in Florida. All insurance companies offer their own unique umbrella coverage, though policies are often similar from carrier to carrier. That being said, if your umbrella policy provides coverage for a claim that your underlying homeowners, auto, or watercraft policy doesn’t, you’re not off the hook entirely from paying out of pocket.

Umbrella policies come with what’s called a “self-insured retention,” or the amount the policyholder must pay if the umbrella policy provides coverage for a loss that the underlying policy doesn’t. So if your homeowners policy doesn’t cover an incident that your umbrella policy does, you’ll have to pay the self-insured retention amount — typically $1,000 on personal policies — before the umbrella coverage pays the rest.

What Are the Benefits of Umbrella Insurance in Florida?

The main way that umbrella policies benefit residents in Florida is by greatly increasing their personal liability coverage limits. However, when looked at more closely, umbrella policies actually come with several benefits, such as:

• Providing coverage for things personal policies don’t: While this isn’t true 100% of the time, in many cases umbrella policies list extra covered perils that your underlying policy doesn’t. For example, homeowners insurance often doesn’t cover things like the rental of special vehicles such as jet skis or ATVs, while umbrella insurance does.
• Potentially lower out-of-pocket amounts: The self-insured retention amount on umbrella policies is often $1,000. If you have a claim that your underlying policy doesn’t cover but the umbrella policy does, that’s all you’ll have to pay out of pocket. Personal homeowners, auto, or watercraft policies may come with deductibles that are much higher than that, which of course you’d have to pay out of pocket before receiving reimbursement. Your personal policies’ deductibles are likely to be higher if you opted for cheaper premiums.
• Providing coverage across the globe: Beyond the standard coverage territories included in personal homeowners, auto, and watercraft policies, umbrella policies cover you globally. So you might want to wait to take that risky backpacking cross-country adventure until you’ve got an umbrella policy.

Umbrella policies in Florida provide a generous amount of additional coverage on top of your existing coverage, hence their well-earned name. Working with a Florida independent insurance agent is the best way to get set up with all the protection you could possibly need.

How Much Does Umbrella Insurance Cost in Florida?

Another draw of umbrella policies is that they’re quite inexpensive for the amount of coverage they provide. Since you’re much less likely to need to dip into your umbrella coverage than you are your homeowners coverage, for example, insurance companies in Florida are able to offer policies at a much cheaper rate. For a personal umbrella policy with a $1 million limit, annual premiums are often only a couple hundred dollars, which is almost insanely cheap.

Why Work with a Florida Independent Insurance Agent?

In order to get the protection you need and deserve, you’ll want to work with a trusted expert. And who could be better for the job than a local agent who shares your area code? Independent insurance agents act as your own personal insurance shoppers, offering you tons more options than one-policy companies. With just one call, they’ll hook you up with multiple quotes.

Florida independent insurance agents are armed with knowledge on what coverage is needed in your area, and they’ll get you set up with just enough of it — not too little, not too much. They’ll handle all the heavy lifting so you can rest assured you’ll be set up with the right coverage at the right price.

They’re not just there at the beginning either. If disaster strikes, your Florida agent will be there to help walk you through the claims process and make sure you’re getting the benefits you're entitled to. Now that’s thinking ahead.