Understanding the concept of commercial umbrella insurance can be unclear on many levels, so now is the time to decode commercial umbrella insurance and depict why your business should consider this line of insurance protection. As a business owner, you may think that having a general liability policy will provide the right amount of protection for your Alabama business; however, catastrophic accidents happen all the time and your business needs to be adequately protected for when they do.
What is a Commercial Umbrella?
A commercial umbrella policy is designed to provide extra protection to cover a claim that exhausts the limits of the underlying liability policies. As a business owner, you need to be prepared to protect your business and your business assets, but if you aren’t properly insured, you may be faced with some serious financial challenges.
As a business owner, you probably have general liability insurance that provides protection for claims alleging bodily injury and/or property damages along with a commercial auto insurance policy providing coverage for you and your drivers while operating in the scope of your business. But what if your business is faced with a serious auto accident that results in serious injuries or even fatalities?
Imagine This Scenario
Let’s say that one of your drivers is heading to a job site and becomes distracted with the navigation. As he looks down, he fails to see traffic stopped and swerves left of center and hits a vehicle head on. Imagine this head on collision results in serious injuries to the other driver along with a fatality to the passenger. If your commercial auto limit of liability is $1,000,000 and the total damages exceed this, your business is responsible for anything exceeding the $1,000,000 limits.
This is where you need an umbrella. For a nominal fee, you can purchase an umbrella policy that will cover the damages that are more than the underlying policy’s limit of insurance. In this example, if the total damages are $1,750,000 and the limits of $1,000,000 under the commercial auto policy are exhausted, then the umbrella would kick in for the balance of $750,000.
Coverage Your Alabama Business Needs Today!
Umbrella policies have limits starting at $1,000,000 and typically go up in million-dollar increments from there. Burkett & Associates can assess the risk potentials within your business to establish just how much umbrella coverage best fits your insurance needs. Our job is to provide all-around business protection for all your Alabama business needs.
Not having an umbrella means the possibility of being faced with out-of-pocket expenses that exceed your policy limits such as medical bills, property damage costs, legal fees, not to mention judgements/settlements. Can you afford NOT to have an umbrella? Call our offices today at Burkett & Associates 256-704-7400.
