What Is Umbrella Insurance?

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Umbrella Insurance is a type of casualty insurance that supplements the policy limits of your underlying primary insurance policy. This means that it can help cover additional costs like legal fees, damages, and medical expenses covered by your primary hotel insurance policies. Umbrella Insurance for hotels can also cover the gaps in your General Liability insurance coverage or coverage exclusions in your original policy. Think of this type of insurance as an extra layer of protection that can issue payments when the limits of your primary policy have been reached.

 

For example, if a lawsuit results in a $1.5 million payment and your General Liability insurance policy has a $1 million limit, then an Umbrella Insurance policy will pay the remaining half a million, so you don’t owe anything out of pocket. This type of policy is especially vital for hotels as they do a considerable amount of business with thousands of different individuals on a daily basis. This results in a lot of risks and potentially large liability payouts.

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Why Get Umbrella Insurance for Hotels?

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If you have a General Liability insurance policy, you might wonder why you would need Umbrella Insurance in addition. Are you not already covered? Here are several reasons that the extra coverage is needed:

• Settlements Are Unpredictable - Most General Liability rulings are based on the precedents set by previous rulings. Essentially, each courtroom is different and the settlement amounts can vary wildly.

• Lawsuits Are More Common - When bodily injury or property damage occurs, clients are likely to sue and often have their sights set on high-dollar payouts.

• Increased Medical Costs - As medical technology advances, even catastrophic injuries can be treated, but these treatments can be costly. An umbrella policy can save you expensive out-of-pocket medical expenses.

• Social Inflation - Cases with large payouts get more attention, which creates biases amongst juries resulting in increasingly higher settlements. Those settlements, in turn, receive social attention, and the cycle continues.

• High Risk - Hotels are particularly susceptible to lawsuits because of the large number of guests in and out daily. They also have high-risk exposures like pools, alcohol, and shuttle vans.

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What Umbrella Hotel Insurance Does Not Cover

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By definition, your Umbrella Insurance policy follows form and is an extension of your General Liability insurance policy. This means that it will cover the same sorts of claims and damages. However, there are things that an Umbrella Insurance policy won’t cover.

• Employee injury or illness is covered by a Workers' Compensation insurance policy. Your Umbrella Insurance policy will not be applicable to these types of claims.

• Professional service mistakes that result in a loss of income. These sorts of errors and omissions require Professional Liability Insurance.

• Damage to property, tools, and equipment doesn’t fall under Umbrella Insurance for hotels. Instead, you will need Commercial Property Insurance to cover these types of claims.

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How Much Umbrella Insurance for a Hotel Do You Need?

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In most cases the franchise sets the requirement in which the owner must provide proof of coverage.  This can range from $5,000,000 to $25,000,000.  The amount of coverage will also change the cost of the policy, so it is essential to consider what you can budget when making this decision.

 

Slade & Collins Insurance has extensive experience with Umbrella Insurance for hotels, and we work with a variety of underwriters to ensure we have a policy that can meet your needs and budget. Contact us today for more information or to request a quote. We are located in Lexington, KY, and we proudly serve Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, and Tennessee.

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