No Umbrella? You Could Get Soaked.

It's an icy winter morning, and you're running a little late. After dropping off the kids at school, you hurry off to work. But the salt truck missed that spot before the stop sign, and before you know it, you're pumping your brakes but nothing is happening. You're not going very fast, but you're sliding through the intersection and nothing's going to stop you ... except that other car. Bang!

You just collided with an expensive luxury sedan being driven by a promising young doctor on his way to morning surgery. His airbag deployed, and although it could have been much worse, his right hand was injured and has suffered permanent nerve damage. You come to learn he'll never be able to operate again.

You're not hurt, and the cars get fixed. But then comes the lawsuit. You check your policy and find you have liability limits of $300,000, so you should be fine, right? Wrong! When the judgment for the other party's loss of future earnings is handed down, it's for $2.4 million! The insurance company writes out a check for the $300,000 limit, and you're now on your own with a balance of over two million dollars. Now what?

Whatever personal assets you have are on the table. Savings, investments, future earnings, even what you might inherit ... all good for the taking. Far fetched? Not so. This is a true story, and it could happen to anyone. All the planning, all the time and sacrifice spent accumulating and providing a standard of living for your family ... can all vanish in the blink of an eye.

It might happen in your automobile, or perhaps the neighbor child torments your dog and gets bitten in the face? Maybe someone at your holiday party has a bit too much to drink and has a horrible accident on their way home? There are countless ways you can find yourself in front of a judge or jury without committing a crime. And with the love affair our society has with lawsuits, you could easily end up on the wrong side of a very large judgment.

But it doesn't have to be that way. Enter the Personal Umbrella Policy. This little superhero of a policy can provide big, BIG limits of extra liability protection for a very small premium. It won't cover liability due to any business or commercial exposures, but offers an extra layer of liability coverage over and above certain minimum required limits on your personal auto and homeowners policies ... perhaps even over a rental property or two if you have them.

Personal umbrellas are written in increments of a million, and can range anywhere from $1 million to $100 million. The cost for the typical $1M umbrella for the average one-home, two-car family? Only about $150 to $200 per year. Not a lot of money, considering the peace-of-mind knowing that in order for your limits to be inadequate, it's going to take something extraordinary.

Of course, this always brings us to the question of "How much is enough?" This is an impossible question to answer with any confidence because no one knows what the future holds. There is simply no way to know if you're going to be sued or how much you're going to be sued for. This leaves only one sensible option: Get pricing on various levels of umbrella coverage, discuss with your agent what you feel your exposures are to these types of risks, then pick a level of coverage that both fits your budget and provides you with a better night's sleep.

Remember, being sued for big dollar amounts has very little to do with your earnings or what you have. It has everything to do with protecting the lifestyle you and your family have come to enjoy. Talk to your agent and make sure you have proper umbrella protection. This is a critical piece in your personal asset protection program. Without it, you could be in for stormy weather.