Glossary

A farm umbrella policy provides high limits of liability to protect an insured farmer against a catastrophic liability loss. This policy grants liability coverage that stacks on top of the primary liability coverage provided by the insured farmer's farmowners policy, personal auto, and any other scheduled underlying liability policy. It covers bodily injury (BI), property damage (PD), and personal injury (PI), which includes offenses such as libel, slander, false arrest, and invasion of privacy. The farm umbrella policy also fills some gaps in coverage over a specified deductible (often called a retained limit) in the underlying policy.

An excess liability policy is a policy issued to provide limits in excess of an underlying liability policy. The underlying liability policy can be, and often is, an umbrella liability policy. An excess liability policy is no broader than the underlying liability policy; its sole purpose is to provide additional limits of insurance.

An umbrella liability policy is a policy designed to provide protection against catastrophic losses. It generally is written over various primary liability policies, such as the business auto policy, commercial general liability policy, watercraft and aircraft liability policies, and employers liability coverage. The umbrella policy serves three purposes: it provides excess limits when the limits of underlying liability policies are exhausted by the payment of claims, it drops down and picks up where the underlying policy leaves off when the aggregate limit of the underlying policy in question is exhausted by the payment of claims, and it provides protection against some claims not covered by the underlying policies, subject to the assumption by the named insured of a self-insured retention.

A personal umbrella policy provides high limits of liability to protect an insured against a catastrophic liability loss. This policy grants liability coverage that stacks on top of the primary liability coverage provided by the insured's homeowners, personal auto, watercraft, and any other scheduled underlying liability policies. It covers bodily injury (BI), property damage (PD), and personal injury (PI), which includes offenses such as libel, slander, false arrest, invasion of privacy, and others. The umbrella policy also fills some gaps in coverage over a specified deductible (often called a retained limit) in the underlying policy.

Follow form is when an umbrella policy provision follows the underlying policy as to how the provision applies. Follow form also identifies an "excess" liability policy that follows the underlying policies for most policy provisions. The policy may stand alone for certain exclusions, conditions, etc. while relating back to the underlying coverage for most provisions. This type of policy form is typically used excess of scheduled underlying insurance and usually contains a requirement that the insured maintain scheduled underlying insurance.

Casualty insurance is primarily concerned with the losses caused by injuries to persons and legal liability imposed on the insured for such injury or for damage to property of others.

Liability insurance is a form of insurance that applies to the obligation of the insured to pay damages arising out of legal liability to others.

Coincidental excess coverage refers to the insurance provided by what would otherwise be a primary policy but contains an "excess" type other insurance clause stating that, with respect to a particular set of circumstances only, the policy is providing excess coverage. In other words, the status of the insurance as excess rests on a coincidence of factual circumstances. For example, a business auto policy (BAP) may contain another insurance provision stating that it is providing excess coverage for any nonowned vehicle. For owned autos, the BAP would provide ordinary primary coverage, but for nonowned autos, the BAP would provide coincidental excess coverage.

An excess liability "follow form" policy is excess insurance that is subject to all of the terms and conditions of the policy beneath it. In the event of a conflict, it is the underlying policy provisions that take precedence. Many excess liability policies state that they are follow form except with respect to certain terms and conditions. When this is the case, the excess liability policy is not truly on a follow form basis.

Primary cover refers to the policy that responds first to an insured loss, either on a first-dollar basis or after allowing for a deductible. When the primary coverage limits are paid, any remaining loss is covered by whatever excess layer of insurance may be in place.