Bumbershoot is an excess liability coverage for insureds with major wet marine exposures. The bumbershoot policy covers both non-marine and maritime liability exposures, i.e., protection and indemnity, general average, collision, sue and labor, as well as general liability hazards.
Umbrella
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 or SIR.
SIR
A dollar amount specified in an insurance policy (usually a liability insurance policy) that must be paid by the insured before the insurance policy will respond to a loss. SIRs typically apply to both the amount of the loss and related costs, e.g., defense costs, but some apply only to amounts payable in damages, e.g., settlements, awards, and judgments. An SIR differs from a true deductible in at least two important ways. Most importantly, a liability policy’s limit stacks on top of an SIR while the amount of a liability insurance deductible is subtracted from the policy’s limit. As contrasted with its responsibility under a deductible, the insurer is not obligated to pay the SIR amount and then seek reimbursement from the insured; the insured pays the SIR directly to the claimant. While these are the theoretical differences between SIRs and deductibles, they are not well understood, and the actual policy provisions should be reviewed to ascertain the actual operation of specific provisions
Commercial Excess
An excess liability policy is written over a primary policy to increase the overall amount or limits of protection. It is written on a following form basis, which means that I only increase the overall limit of coverage; it does not broaden coverage.