Umbrella insurance problem

[pb4uski]

As some of you know, we are moving to Texas. When we lived in Vermont, we had a homeowners policy on our Vermont home and car and a policy on our Florida condo and Florida car and an umbrella policy that covered both homes and both cars. The Vermont coverages and the umbrella were written by a Vermont insurer and the Florid condo and car were written by a different insurer because the company writing the Vermont coverages and the umbrella didn't write business in Florida.

When we bought the house in Texas we still had the Florida condo so I bought a separate homowners policy from Farmer's Insurance.

Farmer's tells me that even when I finish the move and have a homeowners policy on the Texas home through Farmer's and an auto policy on my truck Texas registered through Farmer's that they can write an umbrella policy but that the umbrella policy will not include umbrella coverage for our Vermont home or car. Given my previous experience with umbrella policies this sounds crazy. What good is an umbrella that doesn't cover everything that I own? The Farmer's person said that I would need to purchase two umbrellas; once for Texas another one for Vermont.

It's not passing the smell test for me and I'm thinking that perhaps I need a different insurer.

Any thoughts/experience? Especially helpful would be experience from forum members who have umbrella coverage with properties and vehicles in different states.

 

[RetiredHappy]

We had State Farm back in the days and the umbrella policy covered our homes in California and Nevada. After being with State Farm for 20 years, they outpriced themselves and we moved to AAA for 3 years and now Travelers Insurance for about 3 years, although we no longer have homes in different states.

 

[braumeister]

From the Farmers website, their umbrella policy covers only

• Your primary residence
• Two motorized vehicles
• Small Sailboats
• Motorboats with fewer than 50 horsepower

But you can also add optional umbrella coverage for other property and situations: Additional motorized vehicles; secondary or vacation homes; rental properties; unlicensed recreational vehicles; jet skis and jet sleds, vacant land; and uninsured/underinsured motorists.

So it would seem that you just have to talk with them to get the coverage you want.

 

[pb4uski]

^^^. Thanks. You found this in short order but neither my local agent nor the person I talked to at the Farmers 800 number mentioned it at all. WTH!

 

[Texas Proud]

I do not have an umbrella policy but I have found that Progressive will insure a lot of things others will not...

 

[Kings over Queens]

What does the policy say? Have you read it?

More times than not the person, including the rep at the 800 number or the agents office hasn't a clue what they are saying.

read the policy.

 

[Dash man]

Our USAA umbrella policy covers five properties in three states. You need to just talk to a different person. Shop around if they continue to give you grief.

 

[OldShooter]

My advice in these situations is boring, boring, boring: Find a good independent agent, give him copies of the dec pages for all your policies and let him find the best deal for you.

 

[turbo89]

Finding a good independent agent is hard these days. I’m on #3 in 3 years, after a 20yr streak (she retired).

To the OP - this sounds suspicious to me. SF writes my umbrella including a second home that they don’t insure, in a different state. I just renewed last month without issues.

 

[Sunset]

My advice in these situations is boring, boring, boring: Find a good independent agent, give him copies of the dec pages for all your policies and let him find the best deal for you.

I tried to do this, find an independent agent.
What I found was many agents working for some insurance company faked on google searches they were independent agents.
In the end I couldn't find one.

 

[SecondAttempt]

Finding a good independent agent is hard these days. I’m on #3 in 3 years, after a 20yr streak (she retired).

To the OP - this sounds suspicious to me. SF writes my umbrella including a second home that they don’t insure, in a different state. I just renewed last month without issues.

I also have umbrella through SF but my homeowner's is through American Modern because SF will not insure my house because of its location in a lava zone (it's a ridiculous rating system we have here that even the geologists who developed it say it has no power to predict future risk). I use an independent agent for the homeowner's and she shops it around every year. All in all I pay about the same percentage of assessed value as I did in Arizona where we did not have hurricanes or volcanos.