Umbrella Insurance vs. Individual Insurance Per Building

[Eugene Gutierrez]

What is the action that triggers changing from insuring each property one-by-one to creating an umbrella policy to cover the portfolio?

I own a number of buildings in Maine and currently each building is individually insured. I am assuming that at some point it might be more cost effective to get an umbrella insurance policy on all my buildings. Currently, I have about ten buildings. 

My insurance agent has not really jumped out with an answer for me. Is Maine a tough place to get commercial real estate insurance? What has been other people's experience?

[John Mocker]

Eugene,

In the Insurance Industry the Term "Umbrella Policy" refers to a policy that provides additional Liability coverage once and underlying policy's limits are exhausted.  In Personal Insurance, say the Homeowners policy has a limit of $300,000 and you have a $1,000,000 limit on the umbrella.  If there is a covered loss that results in a $500,000 settlement, the Homeowners pays its full limit of $300,000 and then the umbrella policy pays the remaining $200,000. 

When you asked your agent about and Umbrella he/she may have thought you meant a different thing.  What you are asking is are there any policies that can combine the coverage on all the locations and do so at a lower rate.  If you let them know the question that way, they may be able to answer it better.  You may also need to check other agents if your agent does not have multiple companies or does not handle business insurance.