We have 5 million. Have had the same amount for years. We pay about 500-600 bucks. Have had it for maybe 27 years. Never had a claim. We never looked at it as covering net worth. Saw it mainly as a bulwark against paying for a lawsuit and an attachment to our income/home. We’ll keep it forever.
I don’t know about underinsured motor coverage. Pretty sure we have it. Not sure how much. I check the car insurance every couple of years to make sure it’s things we need and it makes sense.
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under and un-insured motorist coverage is a must in our state, where some estimates are that 1/3rd of drivers lack coverage. (Yeah, state law requires coverage for registering your car, but once registered, one can cancel teh insurance and obtain a refund of the remaining months.) And remember, not only your own state residents, but you have to factor in the out-of-state visitors and whatever coverage they may have – or not have.
$3m umbrella for ~$600
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We will never go without it after Mr. B served on a jury that dealt with whether an insurance agent had a duty to warn his client (a friend, too) about what could happen if the client ditched his underinsured coverage. The jury decided that there was no duty under those circumstances, and the client was stuck with his $250K hospital bill. Yes, he was hit by a dude who only had minimally required coverage (underinsured). Had the dude been uninsured, the story would have different.
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So his own medical insurance didn’t have to cover his hospital bill?
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I pay about $1,500 for 2M. That is the max they will cover. I am thinking to add extra 1M. That will cost $500 on top. Everyone else seems to get it much cheaper. What am I doing wrong?
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That seems very high. (Do you raise pit bulls? Host neighborhood pool parties?) Call around to obtain different quotes.
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No dog, no pool, no sports car, we own three houses. One of them stays empty sometimes. Is that an issue?
Nope. They said it was due to an accident - not their problem.
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If you’re covering multiple houses and cars, drivers under 25, that all factors in.
How long have you had it? Mine seems really cheap compared to what other are paying. I was thinking that might be because we’ve had it so long. But I’d also guess it depends a lot on where you live. Also could depend on your homeowners company. I think as a separate policy it would be more than with your regular carrier, but that’s a wild guess. We have drivers under 21, multiple houses and no pit bulls. But our closest neighbor has 4. Fortunately he’s far away.
I’m sure your agent can tell you which factors count.
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I pay $3000 for $5 million. We have 5 rental properties, a house on the water, and a boat.
I’ve been sued before, it’s not fun.
The only kid we have is over 21 and left home many years ago. No driver under 21 but we are older drivers. No boat, no water front or other fun house. It was tough to get the umbrella policy and this year they cap it to $2M. The agent said we will have to get another insurance on top to increase the coverage beyond $2M. Not only it costs so much also I have to beg to be insured. Made me wonder what makes us so hard to insure.
Just gave a call to AAA insurance company. Their quote is $635 for $5M. Is AAA good for home insurance and the umbrella? Never heard of them insuring homes.
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If accident or under worker’s comp, have to go those routes for payments of medical.
We’ve used AAA for home insurance for decades, our last three houses at least. They’ve been great, but we haven’t had any catastrophic events. Also, because we’ve been members since '85 and all of our insurance products are through AAA, they give a bit of a discount on each.
ETA: I can see from Quicken that our umbrella payment is $507, but I’m not sure how much coverage we have. I know it’s over $1M though.
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Our umbrella is through a company that specializes in umbrella policies, the home insurance companies don’t want that much exposure on one property so they are reluctant to write large policies.
The only downside is the umbrella company requires minimum liability amounts in our auto and homeowners policies, which costs some money to achieve.
If you use an agent they shouldn’t have much trouble finding you and umbrella policy from someone.
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Obviously for people with property other than their home and own vehicles, their insurance situation is different than us ‘run in the mill’ folks.
Having the level of coverage to SWAN.
Our auto, home and umbrella are all under same company (USAA)
The auto has liability, we have bodily injury $300k each person/$500k each accident; property damage $100k each accident. Uninsured motorist coverage $300k each person/$500k each accident. These are higher than minimum required.
Our $1M umbrella policy costs $147.70/year. It covers our two vehicles and our home. The schedule of underlying insurance shows the private passenger bodily injury $300k/$500k, property damage $100K or combined single limit $500k. Misc Vehicle liability is $250k/$500k same on property damage and same on combined single limit. Personal Liability is $300k. Watercraft/Pers Watercraft Liability $300k.
I did not know that health insurance company will not pay for treatment for car related injuries. I am reading that in CA one can file a first-party insurance claim with health insurance company.
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It was our agent who made it sound so tough. Our current umbrella specializes umbrella and requires minimum liability amount in everything.
@ChoatieMom If AAA home insurance is good, I may well switch . I’d be saving over $2,000 a year and can get $5M umbrella.
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if the AAA you are referring to is the American Automobile Association, yes, they are a fine insurer. Been doing business in California for years. Auto, home, renters, etc.
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Speaking of insurance, are you purchasing trip insurance when you have an overseas trip? I have never considered purchasing trip insurance until this year as we have the Chase Reserve Sapphire card that has good travel benefits. However, it has limitations. My H has purchased trip insurance when he went on his adventure travels (hiking up Kilimanjaro, Everest basecamp, Aconcaqua etc) but we didn’t have them on past cruises or land travels.
This upcoming September, we have a river cruise planned and given the chaos in air travels and possibly getting sick on the cruise, I have decided to purchase a trip insurance. In addition, we are now on Medicare and the payouts for foreign medical treatments are limited so I bought additional annual medical insurance policies for us and this policy includes pre-existing condition.
Retirement has given us time to think of getting extra protection,more cognizant of events out of our control, something I seldom used to pay attention to.
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