Umbrella liability insurance provides excess liability coverage over several of the insured’s primary liability policies. This type of policy has 3 functions:

1) To provide additional limits above the each occurrence limit of the insured’s primary policies.
2) To take the place of primary insurance when primary aggregate limits are reduced or exhausted.
3) To provide broader coverage for some claims that would not be covered by the insured’s primary policies, which would be subject to the policy retention.

Self-Insured Retention is the amount of the loss an insured must pay before the umbrella policy would be required to respond. The self-insured retention would only apply when a loss is excluded from coverage under the primary policy, but not excluded under the umbrella.