An estimated 8-10 million households with financially successful families are currently underserved by standard insurance companies. When it comes to multiple homes, yachts, luxury cars, jewelry and other assets, there are a lot of complexities to take into consideration. It’s important to understand whether you have the right insurance coverage in place and how much is needed, so in the event of a loss, you’re covered and have peace of mind. Here are three common questions as it relates to insurance.
1. How do I know if I have the right coverage for my personal assets?
Oftentimes successful individuals and their families don’t know what they don’t know. So, it’s always important to have an outside analysis completed on your current insurance program. The goal is to uncover any potential gaps in coverage. For example, a wealthy family currently insured with one of the State Farms or Allstates of the world completed an outside insurance analysis. Within that analysis, $800,000 in gaps were uncovered between what their current properties were insured at and what they needed to be insured at. They switched to a premium insurance provider that could fill that gap, provide customized services for their family’s needs and institute a premium that was relatively flat to what their current program was.
2. How do I know what limit of liability coverage I need?
Most agents and brokers will sell that limit based upon what the client can afford. But it’s important to dig deeper than that. Work with your broker to bring in additional advisors, such as state attorneys or financial advisors, who have a deep knowledge of what your assets are. That information will help when approaching the insurance marketplace, so you get a customized number that best suits your family’s needs at a time of a loss.
3. If my house burns down, do I need to rebuild it?
It depends. The more common, standard markets will often require you to rebuild your home. That’s the way the contract language reads. It might not always be in your best interest though. Today, more than ever before, we find that many clients actually prefer not to rebuild the home and go through that process again. Carriers that work almost exclusively with successful individuals and their families will often provide a cash settlement option if that’s of interest to the client. So, at the time of a catastrophic loss, you can elect for the cash settlement option, still own the property the land sits on and then make a determination on what you would like to do next.
Click here to learn more and view a comparison chart detailing the differences between standard and premium insurance markets.
Article written for Luxatic by Anthony Roman, Vice President at Assurance.
