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To: Elroy Jetson who wrote (48628)	2/16/2006 10:21:39 PM
From: Wyätt Gwyön	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

Many people have $350,000 coverage or less if they are in an auto accident and injure someone. The Umbrella Policy raises this from $350k to $3 million or what ever you purchase. normally the umbrella issuer will require you to max out auto liability coverage, such as 500K in TX i believe, and then provide an umbrella at a low cost. by "low cost", as i recall it is more expensive to increase the auto liability limit from 100K or 250K up to the maximum than it is to get the actual umbrella policy of however many million. standard policies are available up to at least 5 million. they will attach your bank accounts, place a lien on your home and car as well as any other assets you may own a well, at least in TX they can't take your house. back in the days of the S&L bust many people bought expensive houses for cash and then declared bankruptcy, but were allowed to keep their houses. i'm not sure this loophole has even been closed. but i think the only people who can legally take your free and clear house in TX are the government, such as the IRS or the county if you don't pay property taxes. i don't think anybody can get your house in a judgment over a civil suit. If you have significant assets or income and don't have insurance with an Umbrella Policy, you are a fool. i agree. especially because this insurance is very cheap compared to other types of insurance which people inexplicably buy. e.g., in Japan, it is apparently quite common to buy life insurance on your children. so if your 5-yr-old dies you get 250K or something, i guess as a consolation prize. doesn't make sense to me since the loss of a 5-yr-old is not an economic hardship, even though it is an emotional hardship. but customs vary and apparently that type of insurance is quite common.

To: Elroy Jetson who wrote (48628)	2/17/2006 2:00:06 AM
From: Amy J	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

Elroy/Grace/Chris, I don't see a need for a bonded worker from the perspective of a worker that injures him/herself, when you've already got an umbrella policy (unless I'm misunderstanding something.) When I bought my umbrella policy the agent said I don't need to worry if a worker is bonded from the perspective of an injury because the umbrella insurance covers it, so I always hired a non-bonded worker since they are cheaper (because I'm not interested in having their work performance insured.) My understanding of a bonded worker, is the bond guarantees the performance of the job (that it gets done, etc.), but doesn't protect you from being sued by them for injury (which is where an umbrella policy kicks in). We have a bond at work (which we pay to Hartford? or some insurance company) which protects us in case our company's 401k suddenly is stolen by an employee. What is really nonsense (at least to me) is how the insurance companies want you to pay for a line-item in case the BANK's employee steals your 401k funds. Why should we pay for that, the bank should - leave it to the banking industry to find a way to shed their own issues onto others and make others pay what should be their insurance bill. In Q4, Ameritrade lost an entire quarter's worth of corporate 401k checks that was for our employees 401k accounts - can you believe it? They received the checks but sat on them for almost three months without depositing them into people's accounts - the checks are "lost" is what they said. And you could send them another check, but they'd lose that too. They eventually found them all and acknowledged their error. But it creates a bit of a trust issue. And now it takes them 4 weeks to process a payment and our accountant has to call them all the time (otherwise the checks will sit in la-la-land at their offices) - something is wrong with that company. They never used to be this way.

To: Elroy Jetson who wrote (48628)	2/22/2006 4:04:15 PM
From: Tradelite	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 306849

<<If you have significant assets or income and don't have insurance with an Umbrella Policy, you are a fool.>> This is an interesting discussion point. I recently gave up my umbrella policy, and the only reason I got it in the first place was the fact of having two teenagers out on the roads in their own vehicles and on their own two feet, doing who knows what to whom. Once they left, I revisited this issue with my insurer and was told that I would have to be terribly negligent in some case to have to pay more than was already covered in my regular insurance policies. I don't plan to be terribly negligent, nor does my spouse, and I'm (for now) taking my insurer's advice for what it's worth, whatever that is LESS the extra cost of an umbrella policy. The more you have, the more they will take. Having an umbrella policy just might be temptation for the other side to grab for more. Am I right or wrong? Not sure.