A serious claim outpaces auto and home limits fast. Your umbrella is what’s left.
A personal umbrella sits above your auto and homeowners liability and provides additional limits when a claim exceeds your primary coverage. With verdicts and settlements at all-time highs, the typical $300K or $500K personal liability limit is no longer real protection on its own — especially for households with significant assets, teen drivers, or higher-exposure activities.
Most umbrella programs aren’t underbought. They’re under-engineered. Inadequate limits relative to assets, gaps where the umbrella doesn’t sit above a particular underlying policy, missing personal injury coverage, no coverage for landlord activities or a side business — these gaps are common, and they only matter when the primary limit has already exhausted.
At Avanti Group, we run a Residential Risk Audit™ before we recommend any umbrella program. We look at your assets, your activities, your underlying coverage, and your specific exposures — and structure an umbrella that actually protects you when the worst happens.
Who Should Carry an Umbrella
We place personal umbrella coverage for individuals and families across Iowa and the Midwest, including:
- Households with significant assets to protect
- Households with teen drivers (high-frequency claim profile)
- Owners of swimming pools, trampolines, or other higher-exposure features
- Owners of dogs (especially breeds with bite history)
- Landlords with one or more rental properties
- Boat, RV, or motorcycle owners
- Volunteers serving on nonprofit or HOA boards (where D&O coverage gaps exist)
- Anyone whose net worth materially exceeds their primary auto and home liability limits
What an Umbrella Covers
A personal umbrella provides several distinct types of additional protection. The components we evaluate include:
- Excess Liability — additional limits above auto, home, watercraft, and other primary lines
- Personal Injury — libel, slander, defamation, false arrest, and similar non-bodily-injury claims
- Worldwide Coverage — protection for incidents occurring outside the U.S. (varies by carrier)
- Defense Costs — legal defense in addition to the limit on most policies
- Drop-Down Coverage — for situations where the underlying policy doesn’t respond and the umbrella provides primary protection
- Landlord & Rental Property Liability — when properly scheduled
- Volunteer Board / Nonprofit Liability — for service on charitable, HOA, or condo boards
What Most Umbrella Programs Get Wrong
Limits are set too low for actual exposure. A $1M umbrella was the standard recommendation a decade ago. Today, $2M, $3M, or $5M is more appropriate for many households given the way verdicts have moved. We benchmark limits against your assets and risk profile.
Underlying limits don’t meet the umbrella’s requirements. Every umbrella requires specific underlying limits on auto and home. If those aren’t in place, the umbrella may not respond — or may sit over a gap. We make sure the underlying meets the requirement.
Scheduled exposures are missing. Rental properties, boats, RVs, motorcycles, and certain other activities need to be specifically scheduled on the umbrella. An unscheduled exposure may not be covered when a claim arises from it.
Personal injury and worldwide coverage are sometimes excluded. Defamation claims, false arrest claims, and incidents occurring abroad are exposures that vary by carrier and policy form. We review the breadth of coverage at placement.
How to Get Started
A personal umbrella isn’t a commodity product. The right program depends on your assets, your activities, your underlying coverage, and your risk tolerance. We need to understand your situation before we can build the right program for it.
Call our office or use the button below to start a conversation. We’ll review your current coverage, identify any gaps, and let you know exactly where you stand before we ever go to market.