kodokan

When we recently bought a house, we became eligible to take out umbrella insurance (apparently you have to have both auto and homeowner policies first). I got a quote from my usual insurance bod at State Farm for $374 a year for $1mill of umbrella cover, and been umm-ing about whether to go for it. After all, hubby and me are low-risk people; there's not much chance of us causing an accident that results in more than $500k of injury or damage (the current liability limit on our auto/house policies). On the other hand, we live in a nice house in an affluent neighbourhood, and hubby earns a very good salary; if we did cause a high-cost accident, the other side's lawyers would have plenty to work with as regards our current assets and future earnings.

But still, $374... sigh... In the end, risk-averse, 'there's not much point having an early retirement savings pot and not protecting it' Me won out, and I pootled down to the SF office today to sign up...

... where I learned from my helpful agent that if I wanted to save a bit of money, and didn't need $1.5mill of coverage (auto liability plus umbrella cover), I could reduce the auto levels and get a rebate. She suggested $250k/ $500k/ $100k for individual/ total accident/ property, which with my umbrella means we'd be covered for $1.25mill/ $1.5mill/ $1.1mill respectively.

I'd also get a reduction across all my policies by taking out another one, as it would tip me onto a new 'loyal customer, have a discount' level. We played around with the numbers, and I estimate taking out $374 of umbrella coverage is going to reduce my current costs by about $320 a year.

Umbrella insurance suddenly got very cheap!

The other thing I learned today which might be useful to some, is that (a) although bikes are covered on my homeowners' policy, they're not really covered in the sense of being nicked from outside the store, because the policy has a $5k+ deductible. And (b), whilst you can take out a separate personal possessions for bikes, it doesn't cover theft from ANY 'campus', which includes elementary schools (my daughter rides to school). So, if you have kids who bike to school, either double-check your insurance policy covers the bikes whilst there, or make sure your kids are using a darn good lock; the cover refusal suggests the insurers know it's a no-win game for them so thefts must be rife.

scrubbedexpat099

Most people do not go for $5k deductibles.

But for a standard kiddies bike, I can not see the logic of insuring loss, liability another matter.

kodokan

State Farm only do 1 or 1/2 % of house value as a deductible; it's a $5-600k house. I don't know if this is just them, or whether all homeowners insurance is largely just for whole scale burglary or the house burning down. But it's certainly not designed to cover small scale loss of personal possessions.

Liability for kids on bikes is also useful, but I really wanted theft cover as these are proper bikes, not Walmart BSO (Bike Shaped Objects). We bike a lot as a family, so they're transport, not toys. The saving grace is that 80% of the other kids at school don't lock theirs, so theirs would be the first targets for casual theft from the school lot.

scrubbedexpat099

The 2 oldest granddaughters have started riding my bikes. The Cannondale seems their favourite. Helps to have long legs.

I bought my last bike from Performance, their own brand. for $800 it is very nice. 29" so it will give me a couple of years before that one is borrowed.

They do acceptable childrens bikes for about $350.

kodokan

Ah, so far I only have one that can steal my bikes; he's 13, and only an inch shorter than me. He has a GT, a Nomad I think; his 9 yr old sister has a Giant... um... Gloss, I think. Hers was especially difficult to buy, as the only bikes with 24" wheels we found in the bike shops were cruisers, with no gears and back pedal brakes; she hated these.

(We have a tame local bike shop that lets us take their bikes into the parking lot and ride them around as long as we like to get the feel of them; they know we'll end up buying something eventually, being subscribers to the Rule of the ideal number of bikes being n+1.)

MY usual ride: http://www.mailorderbikes.com/m1b0s2..._Deluxe_Ladies It's an electric bike that I used in Switzerland before we moved over here, and it never fails to attract comments and marvelling when I park it up anywhere.

<back on topic> Can't insure the darned thing, though. State Farm won't recognise e-bikes: it's either a bike with no motor, or if it has a motor then it's a motorbike/ scooter/ some variation of thing you ride on the road with a license and insurance. So I have lots of locks, and am just careful where I leave it. Since it looks quite 'old lady', and often has a kid trailer attached for shopping, it's not a high vis target anyway.

Bluegrass Lass

Hmm..well back when we ha a house, we had our homeowner's policy with Allstate, and IIRC we also had around a $1mil umbrella policy. Our deductible was $1000 - that was to cover things like repairs (roof, etc). The deductible for replacement (such as catastrophic damage from a tornado) was higher, but I can't remember what it was exactly.

Bob

Yeah, but someone isn't going to bother inch a POS....