An umbrella is usually described as protecting other people from you. The part nobody mentions is that it can also protect you from somebody else, and that half has to be bought deliberately.
Excess uninsured and underinsured motorist cover is optional on most umbrellas. Many are issued without it.
Three things about the direction an umbrella faces.
The standard grant pays what you owe somebody else. If a driver with minimum limits causes you a catastrophic injury, your own underlying underinsured motorist cover responds and then stops, and a plain umbrella sitting above your liability does nothing about it. The shortfall is yours.
Many carriers offer it as an option on the umbrella and it is routinely left off, sometimes because nobody mentioned it. It extends your own protection to the umbrella limit against drivers who cannot pay, which in a state with low minimum limits is a real and common exposure.
An at-fault claim against you is covered by your liability. A serious injury caused to you by an uninsured driver is only covered by what you bought for yourself. Households insure the first exhaustively and the second by accident.
Both directions, not just the outward one.
It varies by carrier and it is worth choosing a carrier partly on this.
They have to qualify before the umbrella will sit above them.
The exposure that most often produces a claim large enough to need any of this.
Send your current auto limits including UM and UIM. That is where this conversation starts.
We ask whether the umbrella can face both directions, which most quotes skip.
Request a quote