Excess Liability Insurance Coverage: Quotes from $11

Homepage > Business Insurance  >  Excess Liability Insurance Coverage: Quotes from $11

From time to time, business owners face big unexpected events such as auto accidents or product liability claims that can bankrupt a business if they are not prepared.

One of the most important aspects of preparing for such events is by having the proper amount of insurance coverage, including excess liability coverage. So what is excess insurance coverage for liability? Before we provide the answer, let’s first discuss what is excess insurance.

Also read:

• Professional Liability Insurance 101, Pros & Quotes From $5

• Commercial General Liability Insurance - CGL Insurance Quotes

• Workers Compensation Insurance: Workmans Comp Insurance Quotes

• Commercial Auto Insurance: Compare Quotes & Learn

• Professional Indemnity Insurance: Cost & Quotes From $11

• Public Liability Insurance for Business: 101, Cost & Cheap Quotes
  

What is an Excess Policy: Excess Coverage Meaning

Your commercial insurance policies have limits. And when these limits have all been used up, you can’t file a claim anymore even if the insurance policy hasn’t expired. 

When your business insurance policies have reached their limits or exclude some risks, you might need to get reinsurance. But note that there’s no need to do so if you have purchased an excess insurance policy. 

 

What is an excess policy anyway? Here’s an excess insurance definition from International Risk Management Institute:

 

• A policy or bond covering the insured against certain hazards and applying only to loss or damage in excess of a stated amount or specified primary or self-insurance

 

Insurance excess cover will shoulder the remaining costs if your existing business insurance policy reaches its limits. To put it simply, excess coverage adds to the limits of an insurance policy. 

 

Also, insurance companies offer different types of excess insurance like e xcess liability insurance policy otherwise called commercial excess liability.

 

What is Excess Liability Insurance: Excess Liability Coverage Definition

So what is excess liability insurance coverage and what does it do? Excess liability policy, otherwise called commercial excess liability coverage, extends the limits or adds to the limits of general liability insurance, professional liability insurance, and other commercial liability insurance products. Here’s an excess liability coverage example for you to understand better:

Suppose you have general liability insurance amounting to $1 million and you have excess liability insurance amounting to $500,000. Your business faced trouble and you filed a $1 million on your general liability insurance. The client wants you to pay $1.5 million, which means that you’re still $500,000 short. Luckily, you have a stand alone excess liability policy that can cover the remaining cost, allowing you to wrap things up without using company funds. 

In addition, excess liability is a broad term that pertains to excess general liability insurance, excess professional liability insurance, excess automobile liability insurance for business, excess employer’s liability insurance, and excess d&o insurance.

Let’s talk what does excess liability insurance cover. Excess liability insurance doesn’t cover anything. It only supplements the limits of your existing commercial liability insurance policies. Now that you know what is excess liability, let’s proceed and talk about its different variations. 

What Does “Reach Insurance Limits " Mean?

When it’s said that the insurance has reached its limits, it is meant that the insurance policy’s coverage has been claimed.  

For example, if you have a $1 million insurance policy and you claimed $1 million from it. Then your insurance policy has nothing left if you need it next time. In this instance,  your insurance has reached its limits and can’t be claimed anymore. 

You can’t use your insurance policy the moment it has reached its limits. Actually, you can but you need to get reinsurance. Reinsurance is easy to do but is never cheap. To save money, you should follow others and get excess policies like excess liability insurance for example. 

Excess General Liability Insurance

General liability insurance covers your business against property damage lawsuits and bodily injury lawsuits raised by clients and other third parties. Typically, its limits start at $1 million to $2 million. 

In case you want to get more from your general liability insurance, then purchase excess general liability insurance, a type of excess liability insurance coverage. Excess general liability insurance increases the limits of your general liability policy by up to $5 million. 

Note that excess general liability insurance is also called excess bodily injury insurance. Don’t get confused if an agent or carrier uses the term excess bodily injury. 

Excess Professional Liability Insurance 

Professional liability insurance will help pay for the clients’ losses caused by your business’s negligence, violation of good faith, and errors and omissions. Typically, professional liability insurance only offers $1 million up to $2 million. And so, it’s good to get excess professional liability insurance, another type of excess third party liability insurance, that provides an excess on policy limit by up to $500,000. 

Excess D&O Insurance

Directors and officers liability insurance or simply D&O insurance allows corporations to pay parties affected by the dishonest acts or malpractice of top executives. D&O insurance has a policy limit of $1 million up to $3 million. 

However, lawsuits involving directors and officers cost more than what D&O insurance provides. That’s why you should get excess D&O, a type of commercial excess liability policy. With this commercial excess liability insurance, you can extend policy limits up to $5 million.

Excess Auto Liability Insurance

Excess auto liability policy  is a type of excess auto insurance coverage. As the name implies, the purpose of auto liability excess coverage is to extend the limits of your personal or commercial auto liability insurance. For example, if the compensation for a vehicular accident you caused to be paid for by insurance is $1,500,000 but your commercial auto liability only has $1 million, then the excess auto liability will pay for the rest. 

Excess Employers Liability Insurance

Employers liability insurance excess coverage adds another $1 million up to $10 million additional coverage to your EPLI policy, which can take care of costs when an employee files a lawsuit because of delayed employee compensation. 

What is Excess Casualty Insurance?

Excess casualty insurance pertains to all types of specific excess insurance policies that extend the limits of commercial property insurance, commercial liability insurance, and so on. All of what we discussed above falls under the category of excess casualty insurance. 

Is Excess Liability Insurance the Same as Umbrella Insurance?

Excess and umbrella insurance are terms often used interchangeably. However, in truth, umbrella and excess liability are actually two different types of policies:

• An umbrella policy provides higher coverage limits on all the business owner's primary policies, as well as coverage for liabilities not covered in those policies

• Excess liability insurance provides an extra layer of coverage if a business owner's liability extends past the policy limits of both their primary policy as well as their umbrella policy. It only covers a single type of primary policy, rather than applying to all the business' insurance policies as an umbrella policy would

Therefore, know that using the terms umbrella excess liability, excess umbrella insurance, excess umbrella policy, excess liability umbrella coverage, and commercial excess umbrella insurance is wrong. 

---

Excess Liability Coverage: Not Just for Businesses

Excess liability coverage is not just for businesses. Many individuals augment the limits of their personal liability policies - such as homeowner's insurance or auto liability insurance - by obtaining personal excess liability policy. Some of the people who should strongly consider getting personal excess coverage include:

• Those who own their own home or a boat

• Those who own a car and drive frequently, such as those who commute a long distance from home to work every day

• Those who have a dog, as there is a risk of a dog bite to a guest that can result in expenses in excess of their homeowner's policy

• Those who regularly blog, tweet, or engage with others on social media either in a personal or business capacity, leaving them open to accusations of slander or libel

• Those who frequently entertain guests in their home and are subject to the liability of unmitigated property hazards

• Those who own swimming pools, which are a frequent source of personal injury claims against homeowners

Why is Personal Excess Liability Insurance Important?

Like businesses, individuals also face unexpected and extreme situations that can result in them being liable for physical and property damages.

 

Homeowner's and personal auto liability policies also feature policy limits, and the individual is financially responsible for costs over the limits of their policy. Considering the extreme costs of healthcare and hospitalization in the U.S., it is not difficult for a claim to quickly burn through that policy limit.

 

If someone files a claim against your insurance and there is not a sufficient amount of insurance coverage to fully compensate the claim, the claimant can sue you personally for the excess amount and can even use collection practices such as wage garnishment or a lien on your property to compel you to pay.

 

With that said, decide to add personal excess liability coverage on your homeowner’s insurance or personal auto insurance. You don’t have to carry a very large amount of personal excess liability insurance coverage. Having a $100,000 personal excess policy is already enough to cover eventualities where your existing coverage will be all used up. 

---

Excess Liability Coverage Cost

• The price of excess general liability insurance is $54 a month or $594 a year for a $1 million additional coverage

• The price of excess professional liability insurance is $47 a month or $564 a year for a $1 million additional coverage

• The cost of $1 million excess D&O insurance is $132 a month or $1,584 a year

• The cost of $1 million excess auto liability insurance is $62 a month or $744 a year

Note that the figures we provided aren't indicative of your actual excess liability insurance cost. How much you’ll pay for coverage depends on location, type of business/industry, number of employees, revenue, and more. 

For further reference, here’s a table showing the pricing of the best excess liability insurance companies: