Today, I’m going to talk to you about five times people were really glad they had umbrella insurance!
So.. What is an umbrella insurance policy?
Now, you may not know what an umbrella policy is. An umbrella policy is another layer on top of your other insurance policies that you have. Whether you have a homeowners policy for your house, a renters policy for your apartment, a motorcycle policy, an auto insurance policy, or even an RV policy- they all have liability limits. Those policies all have a limit, meaning a maximum, that they’re going to pay on a claim. If you use up all those limits on a claim, then either you got to pay for the remaining balance of the claim out of your pocket or you may have your wages garnished. You may have to sell some sort of assets like your home, vehicles, or cash in a 401k, or you may have to sell a business if you own a business, to be able to pay for the rest of the claim that you’ve become responsible for.
Another option, is you buy a personal umbrella insurance policy.
So, I’m going to tell you about five different instances where people bought them and were really glad that they did!
That One Friend That Drinks Too Much!
So, these three buddies happened to work in the same place inside the city. It was Mike, Dave, and Isaac. And one day they decided to go out to get something to eat after work. They went to a restaurant, got something to eat, and had a few drinks. And then Mike said, “Hey, why don’t you guys just come on over to the house? Let’s hang out. We can talk for a while and maybe have a couple more drinks there at the house.” So they go over to Mike’s house and Mike brings them out to the back patio, they got some rocking chairs out there. And they’re just having drinks, talking about life, business, and everything like that. And the patio, it’s a large brick area. The bricks had been replaced the year before and also had a retaining wall, that was about 18 inches high around the perimeter of it. There were some bushes and other things like that. Some plants, some landscaping around the perimeter of that. The night goes on. It’s about 11:00 PM and Mike decides, “Hey, I want to go inside. I’m going to get some water.” And Dave follows him and says, “I think I’m going to go ahead and call somebody to come get me. I don’t think I want to drive home.” And so he’s going inside to get his cell phone because he left it inside, so he can make a call. When they come back outside, they don’t see Isaac. They look around and they find him on the ground unconscious.
They try to revive him, but can’t revive him. He’s unresponsive. They call the ambulance that comes over and gets him, secures him, and brings him to the hospital. Well, come to find out, he’s suffered a spinal injury. He ends up the next six months, having several surgeries, living on a feeding tube, and being a quadriplegic for six months. After several surgeries, they finally get some feeling back into his hands and into his feet somewhat. But he is going to have to be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Now, he stays home and his wife takes care of him. He and his wife had only been married for a month. He had a small business that he owned, but he lost because he wasn’t able to run it anymore.
Isaac says what happened that night was kind of fuzzy. He doesn’t really remember, but he just remembers that when he had been there before, he didn’t remember seeing the retaining wall there. And as it came out, there was a table that was kind of obstructing the retaining wall before and that table had been removed. Well, unfortunately, Isaac brings a lawsuit against Mike for the injuries because he’s lost his job, he’s got these mounting bills, and he doesn’t have any other way to support himself or to take care of all the massive bills that he’s accumulated. Brings suit in a claim against Mike, and it goes to court. Well, all these things are found out in the court and then they award him judgment. It uses up every bit of limits that he’s got underneath his homeowner insurance. And then it goes well into another million dollars under his umbrella policy. That’s one of those instances where an umbrella policy really comes into play, because Mike would’ve been in a really bad position financially if he wouldn’t have had that. And then Isaac would’ve been as well.
Children Accidentally Drink Homemade Pesticides
So the second story I’m going to tell you about is about a lady named Gina, who happened to have a party at her house. She and her husband decided that they want to have a party, and invite all of their neighborhood friends over and all their children also. Because it was several different families that were all about the same age, they all had children in the same age range. So they decided that they would just have a party at their house, they’d cook, grill out and things like that and just have a good time during the spring afternoon. So they go there to have the party.
And one of the people has a two-year-old, as well as an infant. They bring over the formula that they were going to feed to the infant and ask for some water, see if they have any sort of like distilled water. Well, Gina went inside the house, had some distilled water, and brought it back out, and gave it to this couple, so that they could mix formula for the child. And then also, they went ahead and just gave the other one a cup of water too, because the other one was thirsty as well. Soon thereafter, the infant and the child both got really ill. Like, were having some stomach problems and it alarmed the parents. So they were like, “Well, we’re going to go ahead and go home. Maybe they just got some sort of bug or something like that.”
So they went home and as the evening progressed, it got worse and worse. And the infant became lethargic. Well, they went to the hospital and they started doing some tests to try to see what was going on because this was more severe than just some sort of a stomach bug or something like that. Well, they come to find out that the infant and the child both have arsenic in their blood system and in their digestive system. And so the doctor starts asking, trying to figure out, “Hey, where did your children come in contact with this?” And they wind up finding out that somehow or another, the jug of water that Gina had, had somehow or another been mistaken or mixed up with another jug that had once had poison in it. How in world that happened, nobody still knows. But somehow or another, that got mixed up.
And unfortunately, those two children both ingested arsenic that was found inside the homemade pesticide. The infant died. And the young child did get better, but it was a bit of time and it was a while that it took for that child to recover. Well, they wind up filing suit against that family, for the loss of that infant, for the injuries to the child, and for the medical bills. And then also, the pain and suffering that family suffered because of losing this infant and then the trauma of watching their two year old suffer like that. They easily went through the underlying limits that were on the homeowner policy and went well into the umbrella policy as well. It was almost $1.5 million that was awarded to the family. You never know when things like that may happen. There’s no way Gina did that on purpose. She was mortified, absolutely humiliated. Had to move away from that neighborhood to another neighborhood. Accidents happen. And that’s why we buy insurance. So that whenever those accidents happen, it will take care of incidences like that.
Child Suffers Traumatic Brain Injury from Horse Kick to the Head
This story involves a two-year-old, grandparents, and then also Rob and his family. So Rob owns a home out in the country. He has about 13 acres and he’s got a couple of horses as well. Well, he and his family decide that they’re going to go down to the beach to spend about a week there. Well, they got horses that need to be taken care of. So he asks his parents, “Hey, would you please come over and just check on the horses, make sure they got water, make sure they got food, and just check on things at the house?” Well, they do that. And the grandparents bring over one of their grandchildren from one of Rob’s siblings. They bring them over, checking on the horses. And somehow, they just don’t see the child gets in the way with the horses. And one of the horses kicks the poor child in the head, causing massive brain damage, and rendering them unconscious. The grandparents rush them to the hospital. And they do emergency surgery on the smaller child.
The injuries were pretty significant. It had crushed his skull and he was actually even missing a portion of the skull that they never were able to recover. He had 30% damage in the right side of his brain and has ever since, had to live in a rehabilitation center to help take care of special needs children that have had some sort of injuries like this. The sibling didn’t have the funds to take care of all these different expenses that they had. They had health insurance, but there were still other expenses other than just the medical bills. Then, they also have rehabilitation. And then the ongoing costs of taking care of this poor child, that they just do not have the ability to take care of. He wound up filing suit against his brother, Rob.
Used up all the limits that were underneath his homeowner policy and then went well into his $2 million umbrella policy that he had over that. You just never know what could possibly happen. We always have the best intentions and try to take care of safeguards, but we just never know what may happen and what expenses may come down because of our actions or inactions, or life just happens sometimes.
Teenage Driving Accident
The next story involves two young people that are dating and they’re over at Phillip’s house. Phillip’s the father of Jack and him and his girlfriend, Alice are both there. Well, Phillip asked Jack, “Hey, would you mind going over to the grocery store and getting a couple of different things for me?” He’s cooking supper for them and he’s short a couple of ingredients.
So they go, and start heading back. Something happens and he winds up running off the road and hitting a tree. Jack says, “Hey, someone ran me off the road.” Well, there are no witnesses, they’re out in the middle of nowhere. And Alice doesn’t remember a thing. She was severely injured in the accident, knocked unconscious, and had internal bleeding. Well, the next six months involves a lot of surgeries, rehabilitation, and a lot of pain for Alice. Well, Alice ends up with one leg being shorter than the other. Originally, she had a volleyball scholarship that was going to pay for her to go to college, so she could fulfill her dream of becoming an attorney. Well, those dreams all of a sudden, significantly changed. She’s lost six months of her life for rehabilitation, and her school, and her grades decline. And she’s lost that scholarship because now, she can’t play volleyball.
She then filed suit against Phillip’s auto policy because Jack is a driver underneath that policy. What comes out in court, is that Jack was looking at his cell phone whenever he hit the tree. They wind up deciding in the favor of Alice and take care of all her medical bills, also her pain and suffering, and then also the rehabilitation that she’s going through after that. As well as also paid for her college, because it was Jack’s actions that took away her opportunity for college. That’s another incident where it is a good thing to have an umbrella policy in place. Look, the reality is people are being unattentive more and more. And people are looking at their cell phones, looking at Facebook, looking at social media, texting, and all these other things when they should be just focused on driving. They don’t mean anything bad by it, but tons of accidents are happening all the time because of that sort of thing.
A Friendly Game of Paintball Goes Wrong
The next story is about a friendly game of paintball. So there’s this group of kids that go to high school together and they all like playing paintball sometimes in the evening and then also on the weekends sometimes. And one of the kids’ parents owns some land and it’s about 12 acres, about eight of it is in woods and then there’s like a little field right next to it. And the parents were always really protective of all the kids. They had to come in with all their gear. They had to have facial covering, cover all their face and their neck, and their ears. Keep them protected, so that they couldn’t have any sort of real massive damages. Well, one day, they were out there playing paintball and one of the girls, Maddie got shot. So she was exiting the field and she had come out to the edge of the woods and into the field.
Someone else was calling to her, and so she removed her facial covering so that she could hear better because it was kind of obstructing her ears and she couldn’t hear very well. Well, somebody didn’t realize it and shot at her and thought that she still was active in the game. The paintball hit her directly in her right eye, did massive damage to her eye, and had multiple, very painful surgeries to try to save that eye. Well, they did wind up saving it, but there was a lot of rehabilitation, a lot of meds, and a lot of surgery, very expensive, very high-end surgery to help save that eye. Well, the damages and everything else included were well over half a million dollars, which was the limits underneath the homeowner policy. Well, fortunately, they had an umbrella and policy also in place that was able to meet the additional costs associated with that.
Otherwise, the homeowners would’ve had to pay those differences out of their pocket someway or another. We don’t ever mean for things to happen, but sometimes things just happen like that. And what could be just a freak accident could cost a significant amount of money that we’re just not prepared to pay. And also, could significantly change a person’s life.
Well, there are five different stories about different people that have needed an umbrella policy. And thank God they had it in place, or they could have been in real financial difficulties. And then also the people that were hurt in those may not have been able to recover and have a better life than if those people did not. If you don’t have an umbrella policy, reach out to your agent, reach out to us, we’ll be glad to talk to you about it. It’s usually very inexpensive to buy those policies.
Usually, not more than a couple hundred to maybe $1,000, at most, a year. That’s somewhere between $20 to $100 per month, maybe. To make sure that your assets are protected and to make sure that people that you have come in contact with, that you’re able to take care of them in the event that something happens that is just an accident.
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Beaux Pilgrim, CEO
Beaux Pilgrim
Reed Insurance