Umbrella Insurance Policy - a best practice list
I'm looking into umbrella insurance policies, as I have a recently created LLC and one property to cover, with another on the way, and a pipeline of anticipated consistent growth over the next 12 months. I initially tried calling Allstate, as I have my personal property and another rental (not under the LLC) insured through them. However, I'm not yet satisfied with what they have offered. In doing a little more research online, I came across a great list of things to consider when shopping for umbrella policies - most of which, I was not thinking about. The list seems really helpful, so I'm sharing here:
- 1. Make sure the policy has an All Risks provision.
- 2. Make sure that you understand what the "vacant property coverage" is - i.e. read the fine print.
- 3. Be sure to have a Loss of Rents provision.
- 4. Don't take the basic liability coverage - pay the extra to go to $500k or $1M
- 5. If you have a property manager (or even if you don't yet - you may get one later), make sure they are covered, or there is the option to add them as an "additional insured".
- 6. Companies change their policies a lot, so don't just take someone's recommendation. Shop around.
- 7. Get a Commercial Umbrella Policy - Personal Umbrellas can just deny coverage without warning if you have more than their "limit" of properties (usually 3 or 4).
The full list with more explanations is here.
So this is where I am starting in regards to searching for a good scalable policy for my LLC-owned rentals. Would you add or remove anything from this list?