How can I buy an umbrella liability insurance policy without having a home owners or renters insurance?

Question

I own a rental property in Houston. Since I live overseas and do not have home owners or renters insurance, the insurance company of my investment property will not write a $1000,000 umbrella policy. My investment property's dwelling policy has $300,000 liabililty coverage in it.

Is there any way I buy $1000,000 umbrella policy? Any names of insurance companies?

Thank you

Thank you everyone who took time to answer my question. Here is few clarifications:

I personally own the house and not through a corporate entity?

I have a dwelling policy TDP-1 on my rental. It is written by CYPRESS TEXAS LLOYDS.

I called the agency who sold me this policy. They said they can bump the current $300,000 liability to $500,000 for additional $500 per year.

This would certainly help but I want $1 million coverage.

Answer 1

You say you have a dwelling policy on your rental so I'm guessing it's residential (1-4 units) and it's properly insured as a rental. Who owns the property, you personally or through a corporate entity? If it's personal you can try a company called RLI (public company, look up their web site and find an agent). They allowed umbrellas without supporting business. If it's owned by a corporate entity, you'll need a commercial policy with commercial umbrella.

You may want to inquire if the dwelling policy can be bumped to $500K on liability limits. My blog has an article on dwelling coverage for rental properties you may find interesting.

Answer 2

You may be confusing terminology here. An umbrella is unnecessary in this instance. You need a "general liability" policy and a new insurance company. For a homeowners policy additional liability coverage is no where near $500 more a month. I don't see any reason an insurance policy for a rental, with landlords liability coverage, should cost you this much.

A general liability policy for a rental property business (you can be this business entity even if you are not a corporation) runs about $500 - $700 a year and can cover any and all properties that you own. For instance you could have a $1 million per occurrence and a $5 mil aggregate limit. You would not need to have landlords liability on each individual property, just a "dwelling-fire" policy to cover the building it self. An independent insurance broker or agent that is located in the area of your rental should be able to walk you through this. If not, find one that does.

Answer 3

OK, do you have your property in HOUSTON insured? YOu need a COMMERCIAL umbrella over a business property - NOT a personal one. The personal umbrella isn't going to COVER a business venture, anyway.

So, a COMMERCIAL umbrella will have an underlying liability requirement of $1,000,000, so you will have to raise the liability limit of the rental property to $1,000,000 on that policy (it becomes the deductible, on the umbrella). And the umbrella should cost you about $1,000 per million.

I"m making an assumption that the "rental property" in Houston is insured impropertly, on a homeowners policy - which could open up a can of worms if you have a claim.

But ANY indpendent agent should be able to do the commercial umbrella over the rental property - they're just going to ALSO want to write the policy on the rental property. So if you're with State Farm or such, you'll have to move the whole account to another agent. Email me directly if you want the phone number to an agency that can help you out, here in Houston.

Keep in mind . . . the liability sections ONLY cover suits brought against you in the US.

Answer 4

There are a number of companies that write mono-line umbrellas. So do some shopping. But, if you own a rental property you should beef up your existing policy, or replace it. Get a good commercial package policy with a reasonable building limit and, at a minimum liability limits of $1 million per occurrence / $2 million aggregate.

I agree with the guy above. You need to contact an independent broker.

Answer 5

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Answer 6

you need a commercial insurance broker instead of the one you are currently using. I suggest using either web-based lookup for one in Houston, or the telephone book.

Commercial and excess lines companies write the sort of insurance you are looking for regularly. Companies whose basic business is homeowner's or renter's insurance limit their umbrella coverage to properties where their customer resides in a covered property.

Of course, the commercial and excess lines insurance market is probably more expensive. Still, no coverage in this age of litigation for the silliest things can be very expensive indeed.

GL

Answer 7

hi, my call is Eunice Saunders and that i'm an coverage Agent. you may desire to have "underlying" coverage to purchase Umbrella coverage. First get a small renters coverage say 20k or much less with a minimum of 300K in own legal duty coverage then you extremely will qualify for the Umbrella coverage. The renters coverage is particularly low priced...perhaps 50-60 money according to year and it provide you with the added coverage which you extremely desire plus preserve your property besides. solid success! Eunice

Answer 8

Rent-To-Own Home : http://RentToOwnHome.uzaev.com/?qtNp