You deserve more than a quick quote from a call center. That’s why at C&S Insurance, we offer personalized service and expert advice while shopping competitive rates from top carriers.
You deserve more than a quick quote from a call center. That’s why at C&S Insurance, we offer personalized service and expert advice while shopping competitive rates from top carriers.
What Is High Net Worth Insurance for Successful Families & Individuals?
If you have high-value assets, you understand that the risks you face can be more complicated and costly than the average individual. But have you considered the fact that you may have “outgrown” your standard insurance policies?
You may be in need of high net worth insurance — a suite of products offered by speciality providers, designed specifically for high-net-worth individuals and families. More than just separate policies with higher coverage limits, high net worth insurance is a comprehensive, individualized plan that ensures all your bases are covered, filling the gaps often left by standard insurance policies.
Don’t leave your assets vulnerable. Read on to learn more about high net worth insurance.
What Is High Net Worth Insurance?
Also known as private client group insurance, high net worth insurance is a set of personalized policies designed to meet your individual needs, as someone who has high-value assets or a high net worth.
High net worth policies don’t just give you higher coverage limits — although that is a key feature. They also bring multiple types of coverage together into a comprehensive insurance solution, provide you with industry expertise, and include extra benefits like reputation and crisis management. In short, these policies are tailored to your individual needs and designed to fit your particular risks, assets, and lifestyle.
What Does High Net Worth Insurance Cover?
High net worth insurance can include a variety of coverages, including, but not limited to:
● Personal excess liability insurance
It’s a good idea to invest in high net worth insurance if you own a home with specialty features or architecture that brings its worth higher than $2 million — or if you own multiple homes, as vacation homes bring their own risks.
If you’re a collector of fine art, jewelry, watches, wine, rare books, classic cars, or antique furniture, high net worth insurance can be customized to cover your most prized possessions. It can even include transportation coverage if you often loan art pieces to museums or move expensive items between residences, for example.
Any vehicles you have — from boats to planes to automobiles — can be included in a high net worth insurance plan.
High net worth insurance can also cover travel, life insurance, personal excess liability, and domestic employees (like nannies, chefs, and housekeepers).
Who Needs High Net Worth Insurance?
High net worth insurance is catered to high-net-worth individuals and families, whose risks are often different and costlier than those of the average household.
Generally, you should have high net worth insurance if you:
● Own a home with a replacement value of $2 million or more
● Have a collection of high-value assets (e.g., art, jewelry, luxury cars, or antiques)
● Have a net worth requiring liability coverage in the $5 million to $50 million range
If you fit into any of the above categories, standard insurance policies — like homeowners, liability, and auto insurance — likely won’t meet your needs. Your high net worth can make you a target for lawsuits, but with high net worth insurance, you get comprehensive liability defense built into your policy.
What Makes High Net Worth Insurance Different From Standard Insurance Policies?
High net worth insurance is more than the sum of its parts. Typically offered by different carriers than standard policies and available for purchase through expert agents (like the team at C&S Insurance) high net worth insurance often includes benefits such as:
Guaranteed Replacement Cost
While standard homeowners insurance policies typically have a cap on how much they’d pay to rebuild your home, high net worth policies often include a promise to rebuild your home to its original quality, no matter the cost.
Cash Settlement Option
If your home is deemed a total loss, many high net worth insurance policies give you the option of taking a cash settlement instead of rebuilding. Standard homeowners policies, in general, never offer this option.
Agreed Value Coverage
If you drive a luxury car or have a collection of high-value items, high net worth insurance policies often give you the option to purchase agreed value coverage. This means that the payout amount you receive is agreed upon between you and the insurer up front, helping you avoid depreciation arguments (which are common with standard policies) if you do need to file a claim.
Higher Coverage Limits
With high net worth insurance, you can purchase blanket coverage for your valuables without limits on individual items. It’s much more comprehensive than the personal property coverage offered by standard homeowners policies, which typically cap at 50–70% of your home’s dwelling coverage limit.
If you have expensive jewelry or other valuables, you often need to add an additional rider to your standard homeowners insurance policy to get them covered. But high net worth insurance automatically insures your luxury goods.
In addition, standard homeowners policies typically max out close to $2 million for dwelling coverage. But through high net worth insurance, you can purchase dwelling coverage for homes worth $50 million, $100 million, or more without the need for multiple policies.
High net worth insurance also often includes automatic inflation protection, which adjusts your coverage limits annually based on increases in construction costs in your specific market.
Higher Liability Limits
Personal umbrella liability policies typically have limits between $1 million and $5 million, but with a high net worth policy, you can purchase umbrella protection of up to $10 million or more. When you have high-value assets, you’re more vulnerable to lawsuits, so this is an especially important aspect of high net worth insurance policies.
Specialized Risk Assessment
When purchasing a high net worth insurance policy, you will receive detailed property inspections, including examinations of your home’s security systems, disaster preparedness, and fire suppression equipment. This helps you and your insurer identify vulnerabilities before they result in costly claims. These assessments are more in-depth and effective at identifying risks than the basic questionnaires involved when purchasing standard policies.
As part of the terms of a high net worth policy, your insurer may require you to install specific security measures or safety features in your high-value home.
Crisis Management Services
High net worth insurance often includes special services to help you manage crises and protect your reputation.
With high net worth insurance, your insurer provides personal liability coverage starting at $5 million and extending to $100 million for ultra-high-net-worth clients. This coverage includes legal defense costs that fall outside policy limits.
When hired independently, crisis management specialists and media consultants typically cost around $25,000 to $75,000 per month. But their services are included automatically with many high net worth insurance policies.
High Net Worth Insurance Through C&S
Not every agency offers high net worth insurance services — but C&S does for families across Massachusetts and New England. We don’t just stretch standard policies to cover high value items. Instead, our industry experts build you a high net worth insurance portfolio with specialty carriers.
To learn more about protecting your high-value assets, talk to an agent at C&S today.