Personal Umbrella Insurance in Texas

What a Texas personal umbrella policy covers

A personal umbrella policy is excess liability coverage that pays after the liability limit on the auto or home policy underneath it has been exhausted.

The umbrella does two jobs. The first is height: it adds a second layer of limit above policies that stop at a number a serious injury claim passes without effort. The second is width, because an umbrella form covers a few things the underlying policies exclude.

What an umbrella typically adds:

• Bodily injury and property damage liability above the underlying auto and home limits
• Personal injury offenses such as libel, slander, and false arrest
• Legal defense costs, usually paid outside the policy limit
• Liability for incidents outside the United States, where the form provides it

A claim runs through the underlying policy first. The umbrella pays nothing until the primary limit is gone.

How to size a Texas umbrella limit

An umbrella limit is written as an amount per occurrence and an annual aggregate. Both are set at the quote.

Sizing is a question about exposure rather than about comfort:

• Household assets, including home equity, savings and investment property
• Future earnings, which a judgment can reach for years after the loss
• The number of drivers, vehicles and properties on the schedule
• Activities that put other people on the property or in the way, such as a pool, a trampoline or a teen driver

The limit gets chosen against that schedule. A household with two drivers and one house is a different sizing question from a household with four drivers and two rentals.

The underlying limits you have to carry first

An umbrella attaches over existing policies. Every insurer therefore sets minimum underlying limits that the auto and home policies have to meet before an umbrella will be issued.

Texas makes this concrete. The state minimum liability limits are 30/60/25 under Texas Transportation Code §601.072. Umbrella insurers set minimum underlying limits above that floor, so the auto liability goes up first and the homeowners personal liability goes with it.

Three rules that catch people out:

• Every vehicle, home, rental property, watercraft, and recreational vehicle in the household has to be listed and has to carry the required underlying limit
• Letting an underlying policy lapse does not shift the loss to the umbrella; the umbrella pays as if the required limit were still in place
• A household member who moves out or a new teen driver changes the schedule and has to be reported

What a personal umbrella does not cover

A personal umbrella covers liability to other people, which leaves out several things owners assume are included.

Not covered by a personal umbrella:

• Damage to the policyholder’s own home, vehicle, or belongings
• The policyholder’s own injuries and medical bills
• Business activities, professional services, and rental operations beyond what the form allows
• Intentional or criminal acts
• Liability the policyholder took on by signing a contract
• Injury to a household employee, where workers compensation rules apply

Business liability is a common surprise for a Texas owner. A side business run out of the house sits outside the personal umbrella, and the answer there is Commercial Umbrella Insurance in Texas.

Who in Texas usually needs one

A personal umbrella earns its place when a household has either assets worth protecting or an exposure that makes a large claim plausible.

Households that usually carry one in Texas:

• Households with a teen driver or several drivers on one policy
• Owners of rental property, where a tenant or a tenant’s guest can sue
• Homes with a pool, a diving board, a trampoline, or a dog with a bite history
• People who serve on a homeowners association or nonprofit board, which many forms cover
• Households whose net worth or future income exceeds the auto liability limit

A judgment above the auto liability limit gets collected from the household, not from the insurer. The limit chosen is the only ceiling a Texas household controls.

What Aulona Insurance Group can place

Aulona Insurance Group places personal umbrella coverage over the auto and home policies it writes. The limit is set at the quote, on the recorded call.

Aulona Insurance Group places excess liability over:

• Personal auto policies, standard and non-standard, statewide in Texas
• Homeowners, condo unit owner, and renters policies
• Landlord and dwelling fire policies on rental property
• Coastal homeowners policies written alongside a separate windstorm policy

Luka Cenaj, the agency’s licensed principal, goes through the underlying limits on a recorded call, because an umbrella insurer sets the limits the policies beneath it have to carry.

Commercial umbrella and excess liability for a Texas business is a separate placement, handled on the business side of the agency.

Where Aulona Insurance Group is not the right fit

An umbrella depends on the policies underneath it, so anything the agency cannot write underneath it cannot cover from above either.

Outside what Aulona Insurance Group places on an umbrella is an umbrella over a vehicle the agency cannot write underneath, which takes in a vehicle at $150,000 MSRP or more, a pre-1981 vehicle, a recreational vehicle and a heavy truck.

A household with an umbrella sitting over a vehicle on that list needs a market this agency does not hold. The call says so rather than issuing a policy with a hole underneath it.

What moves the price of a Texas umbrella policy

The premium on a Texas personal umbrella is set by the insurer, not by Aulona Insurance Group, and the schedule underneath it drives the number.

The schedule underneath the umbrella decides the rest:

• The limit selected, set at the quote
• The number of vehicles and the number of licensed drivers, including any youthful driver in the household
• The number of homes, rental units, and units in each
• Watercraft, recreational vehicles, and whether the form covers them at all
• Liability claim history across the household
• Whether the underlying auto and home policies sit with the same insurer

Aulona Insurance Group publishes no premium on this site and does not rank insurers by price.