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What Are Umbrella and Excess Insurance Liability Policies?

Umbrella policies provide additional limits over one or more primary policies, in that they usually lack "follow form" clauses, their definitions of what is covered may be broader than the definitions in the primary policies, and they sometimes lack exclusions used in underlying primary policies. An umbrella policy may cover certain risks from the first dollar of loss or liability incurred, which were never covered under the primary policies. For those risks that are left uncovered by primary policies but are covered under the umbrella policy, the latter is said to "drop down" to cover them as primary insurance and fill in the gaps in the underlying policies. They usually provide broader coverage than an Excess Liability policy.

Excess Liability policies also provide additional limits over the underlying liability, however are more restrictive and do not provide coverage which is unavailable in the underlying policy. Excess insurance is similar in that it pays after an underlying primary policy is exhausted, but the critical difference is that excess policies are normally "follow form" policies that conform exactly to the coverage of the underlying policy, except that they add on their own excess limit which is then stacked on top of the primary policy's limit.

Excess and Umbrella insurance liability policies are very important coverages to have whether you are in construction, logistics or freight brokering among other industries. Often excess insurance and umbrella insurance are used interchangeably and misconstrued as the same coverage, when in fact they are different coverages.

Whether you are needing an excess or umbrella policy we can guide you through the process and obtain the best coverage at the best price.