Umbrella Insurance 3 states
Rental Property Investor · Washington, DC · Member since 2018 · 98 posts · 38 votes
Advice on getting umbrella insurance for 7 units in 3 states (MD, MI and NY). My primary house is in MD. I was quoted $504 for 6 months through GEICO but it seems high. Other carriers I have called want all of the insurance under them, which I prefer not to do.
My wife and I recently went through the process of getting an umbrella policy set up for out of state rentals we just bought. We live in WA and our rentals are in OH. We looked into a stand alone umbrella policy like it sounds like you are wanting, but as you have found out, they are very expensive. The cheapest one we found was through RLI Corp and it was $950/yr for $1 million. We had been with our home/auto insurance carrier for 15 years and didn’t want the hassle of switching companies to get a cheaper umbrella by bundling home/auto/umbrella together, BUT what we found out was that we were overpaying by a lot by staying with that carrier. We ended up finding an insurance broker through Goosehead Insurance and they actually will shop around a whole bunch of insurance carriers and get you the best deals. We ended up getting our home/auto for about HALF what we were paying before and then we got our umbrella for only $300/yr bundled up through Safeco (via our Goosehead agent). Obviously there are a lot of variables that go into calculating insurance premiums, so your situation may be a lot different than ours, but I HIGHLY recommend getting in touch with a broker and having them evaluate all your insurance. Also make sure you have separate landlord policies for your rentals. The broker can help you with those too. What is also nice about having a good broker is that periodically they can re-evaluate your insurance and you can keep using that person no matter what insurance carrier ends up having the best pricing.
That could be high or low. You forgot to state the amount of insurance. You might also want to ask if there’s a yearly discount. I was paying $1600 for $2mil for 13 properties, 2 cars, a boat and a motorcycle in 2 states. (Insuring yourself and your vehicles is probably more important than the properties.)Then USLI (my previous insurer) changed their rules in February saying I would be reduced to $1million for $1200 because at least one of my properties had a pool. So I switched to Hudson which is $1400 for $2million. Its policies require 300/300 base insurance.
Going from 1 mil to 2 mil was only a few hundred a year. Removing a property only saved about $50/year. But, again. Don’t forget. You personally are 10x more likely to do something that requires the umbrella than your property is. Make sure you and your vehicles as well as your primary are all stated and covered. GL.
@Patrick Shep Most umbrella policies need to be set up by an insurance agent.
I have clients that have just their home and auto with $1Mil umbrella cost is about $260/year. Then other Clients with 20+ rentals that are spending $6-7K/year for $5Mil umbrellas and everything in-between. The cost on umbrellas have to do with the houses, the neighborhoods, your underlying policies, you as a client, how often you change insurance carriers for your home, auto, and rentals, and how many claims there are in your insurance history, among probably 100 other criteria.
You might be saving some money by not working with a good insurance agent. You are definitely saving money by not working with a crappy agent. But I also have clients that thought they were getting great insurance prices and doing a good job covering their assets however I have seen a lot that is very contrary to that belief.
Everything in life has a cost, you get to decide what and how you are willing to pay.
My wife and I recently went through the process of getting an umbrella policy set up for out of state rentals we just bought. We live in WA and our rentals are in OH. We looked into a stand alone umbrella policy like it sounds like you are wanting, but as you have found out, they are very expensive. The cheapest one we found was through RLI Corp and it was $950/yr for $1 million. We had been with our home/auto insurance carrier for 15 years and didn’t want the hassle of switching companies to get a cheaper umbrella by bundling home/auto/umbrella together, BUT what we found out was that we were overpaying by a lot by staying with that carrier. We ended up finding an insurance broker through Goosehead Insurance and they actually will shop around a whole bunch of insurance carriers and get you the best deals. We ended up getting our home/auto for about HALF what we were paying before and then we got our umbrella for only $300/yr bundled up through Safeco (via our Goosehead agent). Obviously there are a lot of variables that go into calculating insurance premiums, so your situation may be a lot different than ours, but I HIGHLY recommend getting in touch with a broker and having them evaluate all your insurance. Also make sure you have separate landlord policies for your rentals. The broker can help you with those too. What is also nice about having a good broker is that periodically they can re-evaluate your insurance and you can keep using that person no matter what insurance carrier ends up having the best pricing.
Thanks Ryan. I actually got a quote from Goosehead a few weeks ago. With an umbrella I would save $600 on my current primary and auto policy.