A Note on Boat Insurance

[hottoddie]

You wouldn't expect your auto insurance to pay you if you drove improperly, but there you go, that's part of what auto insurance does. Freeze insurance is just covering the risk the boat could get winterized improperly.

If you pay to have your boat winterized like I do, having something go wrong is a real problem because now you have to deal with the winterizer. Easier to deal with the insurance company.

I consider winterizing maintenance whether I do it myself or pay to have it done. If I pay to have it done and they screw up I expect them to pay for it not my insurance company. Let them eat it or have their insurance pay them. Insurance is for liability, collision, sinking, fire, theft, etc. Not my or my mechanics poor workmanship.

 

[thosmann1]

All the boat losses from Irma is what’s causing rates to go up. I’m with Norman Spencer Group in Ca. They placed it with Tradewinds Ins. Co. They went up 10 percent on renewal last November. Prior to that I was with NBOA, everything was great including a better than average rates. However, when presented with a legitimate claim they denied it based on the adjusters opinion. It also took the adjuster 4 weeks to look at the boat! I fixed it and paid out of my pocket what should have been covered, a $6700 repair on a torsional coupler that was damaged when the props got stuck in mud that took Seatow 2 hours to pull the boat out. It was denied because there was no damage to the props, mud does not damage props but it will stop the boat props. Hence the reason I switched to Tradewinds.

Bow Tie

 

[mobocracy]

I consider winterizing maintenance whether I do it myself or pay to have it done. If I pay to have it done and they screw up I expect them to pay for it not my insurance company. Let them eat it or have their insurance pay them. Insurance is for liability, collision, sinking, fire, theft, etc. Not my or my mechanics poor workmanship.

I'd expect them to pay, too, for multiple meanings of "expect" -- both expectation in terms of my relationship with the marina and their fair, "make good" business practices, and in the sense that if someone is offering a professional service and does not perform it correctly I believe they should be held liable.

But it's a long way from those expectations to reality. Let's say they make some error that results in both engine blocks being cracked. What restitution makes me whole and who decides? Marina guy may decide that a pair of salvage engines sourced from wherever and installed by whomever may suffice, with no input or transparency as to the source of those motors or the qualifications of the installer. He may decide that they can be "fixed" -- again, who decides if they are repairable and how reliable will the repair be short and long term? Worst of all, he may decide he has no culpability and decide some vague contract language eliminates his liability.

Any situation short of me obtaining a qualified repair analysis, mechanic and parts of my choosing sounds unacceptable. My marina guy *may* just say "mea culpa" and eat the cost of whatever repair work is necessary to make me whole, up to repowering with factory reman motors installed at the vendor of my choosing. But that's a big may -- a repower with reman 350 mags is possibly what, $25-30,000 with labor done right?

Insurance merely (mostly) insulates me from those disputes. Here's the damage, this is what it costs to fix, pay the claim. Yes, I know it's not that simple but it's simpler than possibly engaging a lawyer to engage in protracted loss negotiations or a lawsuit to collect from the marina. I'd fully expect that GEICO would do that on their end, to much greater effect than if I did it.

What's great is that if you don't like you don't have to buy the coverage, but I believe it's a risk coverage I think is worthwhile.

 

[Strypes]

My Yacht Policy from BoatUS went down from $1,247.00 to $1,421.00. Only because I removed the towing from the policy since my $72.00 Boat US/West Marine Gold Membership has the same coverage. Other than that it would've stayed the same.