Lawsuits are seemingly everywhere these days. Tort cases are causing people to have to pay five, six, sometimes even seven figures in damages to victims. Lawyers are taking their share too, and it seems like there’s no end in sight. You think that you do everything to make your property safe, and you try to drive the best you can, but you never know what kind of idiot is out there that is going to find a way to sue you. If you happen to lose, you’re stuck paying out whatever the court demands of you, and you need to protect yourself, especially if you have a large amount of assets.
Perhaps the best way to protect yourself from ridiculous and costly lawsuits is to purchase umbrella insurance. Homeowners, automobile, and watercraft insurance policies have a maximum limit on liability insurance, and if the damages you have to pay are higher than that limit, you get to write a very big check. Fortunately umbrella insurance fills that gap, and kicks in when your traditional insurance policy’s limit is hit. Instead of having a $200,000 or $300,000 limit of liability, you’ll have anywhere from $1,000,000 to $5,000,000 liability insurance. This will be more than enough money to take care of any potential lawsuit.
This added liability insurance will take care of any injured person’s medical bills, rehabilitative therapy, lost wages, and other expenses due to the negligence of the person at fault. It also covers your legal fees if you are the at fault person in the case. After you add up all of these medical expenses in addition to legal and court fees, usually the liability on your home or automobile is not nearly enough money to cover that amount of money.
Fortunately you can get an umbrella insurance policy in order to have more than enough liability to handle these situations. They are rare, but they are definitely worth insuring against. One single lawsuit could take away everything that you’ve worked for and leave you with nothing. Some states even have laws that could seize your assets and sell them to pay for the medical expenses and legal fees in tort cases.
How much will such an insurance policy cost you? Fortunately not all that much! The rule of thumb is that you’ll pay about $200 or $300 a year for each $1 million in coverage that you have, and that’s a great deal. Each family definitely should get $2 or $3 million worth of this insurance to protect themselves from dangerous lawsuits, and it’s really very inexpensive considering how much insurance you’re getting, so there’s no reason not to go out and buy some.