Umbrella Insurance for North Shore Households

An umbrella policy sits above the liability limits on your home and auto policies and pays when a judgment exceeds them. For most North Shore households it is the largest increase in protection available for the smallest premium, and it is the coverage we most often find missing.

Why Underlying Limits Run Out

A typical auto policy carries $250,000 or $500,000 of bodily injury liability per person. A homeowners policy carries $300,000 to $500,000 of personal liability. Those numbers were set to satisfy state minimums and lender requirements, not to match what a serious claim costs.

A multi-vehicle accident with injuries, a permanent disability, or a wrongful death claim moves past those limits quickly. Once the policy limit is paid, the remaining judgment attaches to you: savings, investments, rental property, business interests, and in Illinois, future wages.

How Much You Need

The common rule is to carry at least as much umbrella coverage as your net worth. That is a reasonable floor and an incomplete answer, because a judgment can reach future earnings as well as current assets.

We look at net worth, income and years to retirement, and specific risk factors: teenage drivers, a swimming pool, a trampoline, dogs, rental property, frequent entertaining, coaching or board service, and any public profile. A household with two teenage drivers carries meaningfully more exposure than the same household did three years earlier.

What It Costs

A $1 million umbrella typically runs $150 to $400 a year for a household with clean driving records. The second and third million cost considerably less than the first, because the probability of a claim reaching those layers drops sharply.

Carriers require underlying limits at a set threshold before they will write the umbrella, commonly $250,000 or $500,000 on auto and $300,000 on home. Raising those underlying limits to qualify is often cheap and improves the whole structure.

Coverage Beyond Higher Limits

An umbrella is not only a bigger number. Most policies also cover exposures the underlying policies exclude, including personal injury claims such as libel, slander, and defamation, false arrest, and in some forms liability arising from volunteer board service. For anyone who serves on an association board or a nonprofit board, that provision is worth reading.

Umbrella policies also pay legal defense costs, generally outside the policy limit. Defending a serious liability claim is expensive even when you prevail.

Common Questions

How much umbrella insurance do I really need?

Start at your net worth and adjust upward for teenage drivers, rental property, pools, dogs, and years of future earnings still ahead of you. Most North Shore households we work with land between $1 million and $5 million.

Does an umbrella cover my rental property?

It can, if the rental is scheduled on the policy and the underlying landlord policy meets the carrier’s limit requirement. Unscheduled rentals are a frequent gap.

Does it cover my business?

No. Personal umbrella policies exclude business activity. Business liability sits above a commercial general liability policy through a commercial umbrella instead.

Do all my policies have to be with one carrier?

Not always, though many carriers prefer it and price better when home and auto sit underneath their own umbrella. As an independent agency we can structure it either way.

Related Coverage

Where We Write Umbrella Coverage

We write personal umbrella policies from our offices in Wilmette, Evanston, Elmhurst, Elk Grove Village, Antioch, Lakeview, Wicker Park, and North Center, and across Winnetka, Glencoe, Kenilworth, and Northbrook.

Get an Umbrella Insurance Quote

Send us your current home and auto declarations pages. We will tell you if your underlying limits qualify and what an umbrella costs on top. Call 847.242.1040 or request a quote online.