But, more likely than not it just shows that you are more "professional" or "legit" --- sort of...For "protection," you just get landlord insurance and an umbrella insurance policy. 

If you're starting out in 1-4 unit properties I would invest in your own name and get an umbrella policy.

.- conventional loan financing using my nameI figured to keep doing this same method until I reach about 3-4 doors, then it may make sense to remove the $1M policy home insurance policy per home and just do an umbrella policy?

Yep, skip the LLC and just get an umbrella policy for a few hundred bucks a year.  

Generally speaking if you have an umbrella insurance policy you can shield your primary and sleep at night and not worry.1) If you don't have any equity in your home theres nothing for a lawyer to take thats probably the best defensive strategy you can employ.2) No , in some cases it would not but it certainly does help.

Getting an umbrella that will cover each property is tricky as most regular umbrella will only cover property under your name.5) are there any unexpected costs or annual fees you didn’t expect?

One thing that could be beneficial to your situation would be an umbrella policy over the top of your underlying liability limits and you may be able to find a company that is willing to use the umbrella to cover all of your personal policies on the different houses that you have in your name. 

Do you have an umbrella insurance policy?

It would be a good time to look into umbrella liability coverage.

We have a liability policy for our business and umbrella but sounds like we would need something focused specifically on workers to cover incidents if we chose to go with someone who didn’t carry there own liability and worker’s compensation insurance