The
circle of safety: How to protect yourself and your
family if you get sued and what to do before you
get sued!
By
RCI Insurance Group
What
you’ll discover in this report:
How
easy and common it is to be the target of a lawsuit!
How
to get massive protection for just pennies a day
What
you should know about what’s not
covered with Umbrella Insurance
Tips
on how to SAVE MONEY
Insurance
jargon demystified!
What are you really getting?
Find out here... ...and much, much more!
If
insurance is for a rainy day, umbrella insurance is for
a storm! A day when someone hits you with a lawsuit for
hundreds of thousands, even millions, of dollars.
Think
it can’t happen to you? Do you know how lawsuit-crazy
this country is? You can’t pick up a newspaper these
days without reading about somebody suing somebody else
for . . . what? You read the article and say, “That’s
crazy. There’s no way somebody should be able to sue
for that.”
Well,
guess what? The courts are clogged with these “crazy”
lawsuits, and sometimes the person bringing the lawsuit
wins. Do you really need coverage for these crazy
lawsuits? Maybe not.
But
remember that a lot of lawsuits aren’t crazy at all.
Some get settled. Actually, most get settled. Often, the
person being sued winds up paying something to the
person who brought the lawsuit. And that doesn’t even
include the fees the defendant in the lawsuit has to pay
to his or her attorney.
*
Example. Say you’re at fault in an auto accident that causes serious
injuries to the driver and/or passenger(s) in the car
you hit. Your auto insurance has liability limits of
$100,000 per person and $300,000 per accident. (Which
are pretty common limits, by the way, even for people
with a lot of assets.)
How
far do you think $100,000 will go, particularly if the
person or persons involved suffer injuries that keep
he/she/them from working for months, even years? The
accident victim(s) could sue you for his/her/their
medical bills, lost income, even pain and suffering. In
this scenario, $100,000 is not nearly enough coverage.
Guess
what happens if, say, you are hit with a judgment in the
case of $250,000 for one person involved in the
accident? Your auto liability insurance will cover the
first $100,000 -- and you’re stuck for the rest. And
that doesn’t even include the legal fees you have to
pay to your attorney. In addition, in some cases, you
might have to pay all or part of the legal fees the
other party or parties incur. Ouch.
Umbrella
insurance is for these very rainy days. While it may
seem unnecessary, it really isn’t, particularly for
people with homes and other significant assets to
protect. Do you really want to hand over your house
and/or gains in the stock market to someone you injure
in an auto accident? It could happen. But it doesn’t
have to.
Because
it is designed for those really rare rainy days,
umbrella insurance is cheap. It is also versatile.
Umbrella insurance provides additional coverage not only
for your auto policy, but also your homeowners or
renters policy. Further, umbrella insurance covers
things auto, homeowners and renters policies don’t.
Such
as? In the insurance world, there’s something called
“personal injury.” This is not damage to someone’s
body, but to his or her career or reputation.
*
Example. Imagine you say in public that a certain person is a lying,
no-good so-and-so. Maybe you really believe this to be
true, but the person is very offended. He or she can sue
you for slander (if you say it) or libel (if you write
it). If this happens, your umbrella policy will provide
coverage, including legal fees, up to the limits of the
policy.
Umbrella
insurance also covers personal injuries such as invasion
of privacy, wrongful entry, wrongful eviction, false
arrest, false imprisonment and malicious prosecution.
Some umbrella policies will provide coverage if you are
sued because of your service on the board of a civic,
charitable or religious organization.
*
Note. Umbrella
insurance doesn’t cover everything. For example, if
you are sued and the court assesses punitive damages
against you, those damages won’t be paid by your
umbrella insurance. What are punitive damages? They are
damages awarded to someone in order to punish the person
being sued. Punitive damages are awarded for outrageous,
totally reckless conduct -- at least what a judge or
jury perceives to be outrageous, totally reckless
conduct.
You
can usually buy umbrella policies with $1 million limits
for $200 to $300 a year. If you need more than $1
million limits, you can usually buy each extra $1
million of coverage for $100 to $200. Think about this.
For only a few hundred dollars, you can increase your
per-person liability limits 10 times, 20 times, even 30
times -- and it applies to both your auto and homeowners
or renters policies as well.
Umbrella
insurance actually “sits” on top of your auto and
homeowners or renters liability coverage. Say you have a
per-person liability limit of $100,000 on your auto
policy. Say also that you cause an accident in which a
driver or passenger in the other car is ultimately
awarded $250,000.
Your
auto policy will pay the first $100,000, and your
umbrella will kick in the remainder. Well, almost the
remainder. Like auto policies, umbrellas have
deductibles. Usually anywhere from $250 to $2,500. But a
deductible of even $2,500 is a small price to pay if you’re
hit with a $250,000 judgment.
Because
umbrellas are over the top of the auto, homeowners or
renters liability limits, some insurers offering
umbrella policies require you to have your auto and
homeowners with these
