3rd Party Insurance on a mooring.

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Adonnante

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My boat is on a swinging mooring in Millbrook Lake in Cornwall, a muddy inlet that sees water 3 hours either side of HW. The mooring which I made and laid myself is allowed by a licence from the local mooring association. This association requires me to have 3rd party insurance to the value of £2000000 on the mooring. My own boat insurance doesn't cover the mooring and all attempts to obtain cover have drawn a blank. Does anyone in a similar situation require 3rd party cover and if so how is it obtained? All thoughts greatfully received.
 
You are going to struggle to get cover if the mooring is not professionally made but as TK says, check with the your neighbours.
 
Surely the cover is not on the mooring (which cant be worth more than a hundred or two) but is the third party liability cover on the boat - whilst on the mooring or indeed anywhere else. In other words its the boat insurance not a separate policy on the mooring buoy.

My boat insurance has £2 million third party cover and so did my previous policy. Both of them also covered the buoy itself for a couple of hundred.

Talk to a decent broker rather than the el cheepo call centres where the kids operating the phones dont know a boat from a pencil
 
As the title stated the requirement is for 3rd party cover for a mooring, presumably if someone hit it at night say. (it is plastic,small and without any attached ropes in the water to max of 2m depth) I have spoken to 4 experienced marine brokers who are not interested in quoting. My boat has £3m 3rd party cover but that would only apply to the boat which is often off its mooring. This problem has been drawn to my attention by my neighbouring boats and I am reluctant to draw the mooring association attention to the fact that I have/am in breach of thier terms and conditions.
 
No lawyer me but I would be very surprised if you were in any way liable for damage caused by some 3rd party coming into contact with your mooring. If it's in a recognised mooring area (perhaps marked small craft moorings on the local chart) then it's surely no different from any other unlit hazard; the master of any vessel is responsible for avoiding such hazards. You are usually not even expected to show an anchor light in such an area. If your boat is attached and someone runs into it then you would expect to be the claimant rather than the claimed-against. Similarly if your boat were to come adrift and do damage elsewhere your existing marine 3rd party insurance might be expected to be called on providing you had not been negligent in allowing the boat to come adrift.

I can see that if you were providing a mooring for rent you should insure yourself against claims for liability and I'm sure such cover would be offered by a good commercial insurance broker. A private mooring however is quite another matter I would have thought, perhaps no different legally from anchoring using the gear you carry aboard.
 
This is a tricky one. Does the requirement for third party insurance for your mooring give any indication as to why it might be needed? I cannot think of many scenarios where it would be necessary: if the mooring fails and your boat breaks free, damaging other boats in the area, your boat's own third party insurance would surely be sufficient. That leaves the remote possibility that someone hits your mooring and damages their boat, but however you look at it, that can only be their fault. Finally, what if someone picks up your mooring whilst you are away and its fails, causing their boat to be damaged - surely if they pick up a mooring without the owners permission, the risk is all theirs. So, on what occasions would your third party mooring insurance be required to pay out? - none. So no insurance necessary. I would challenge the requirement.
 
Do your neighbours have the insurance? If so who from?

If they dont have it and you cant find a broker who could supply then I would still suscpect its a misunderstanding somewhere along the line.
 
The insurance on a mooring is against failure of it, with 3rd party cover to compensate the damage your or any one else boats relying on it may do should it fail.
If as the mooring is easily inspected and checked, you should let your insurance company know its composition and when inpspected and that should cover you.

On our moorings the main morings as supplied by the club are insured and when I laid my own mooring on the seabed also leased from the crown, my insurance company, was quite happy to cover me, so long as I inspected it. [and also incidently videoed the inspection, making note of any changes/renewal of shackles etc.] So tell your insurance company about your mooring and then your fellow moorers. What any club/organisation doesn't want is a rogue boat damaging others without third party cover. I would suggest that you have that, and give the details to the club/association that you are. It shouldn't give them the heeby jeebies.
 
I cleared the position and composition of the mooring, its to QHM spec. using ferry chain etc, with my insurance company, they were happy with the mooring arrangements but along with all other brokers not interested in giving 3rd party cover. If I were a club or a commercial operator I could gain cover under my general 3rd party insurance but as a private individual this appears not to be available. As to why I need this cover is debatable as if my boat breaks free and damages someone the boat insurance will cover it, if a third party is damaged by running into my boat or mooring they should be liable.
 
I am responsible for my own mooring tackle, which I inspect at least once a year at low water. If it fails (it won't), it's my own silly fault. I replaced the lot last year, at a cost of less than £150 My boat insurance is third party only, £3million max and costs under £100 pa. through Bishop Skinner. No seperate insurance for the mooring is required.
 
Ask the asooc. what risk they want cover AGAINST, as opposed to cover "for" or "on" anything. As you and others have effectively said, you insure against an event occurring rather than have insurance for or an object.

The insurance "on" your car is actually insurance covering the risk of you damaging,etc a third-party whilst driving your car, etc. (and someone or something damaging you or your car if you have full comp.). The car is simply a clause limiting the scope in most contracts.

If you want to try your luck a bit, specify your own risk you wish to cover to a limit of £2,000,000. Maybe say a vessel of a specific size or below breaking free and receiving damage to the aforementioned vessel; any subsequent damage caused by that vessel as a direct result of it breaking free of the mooring. You can put all sorts of limits in it - you have to give written authorisation of it's use. Use permitted only in certain wind conditions (except for your own boat of course).
 
As I vaguely understand it, anyone has the right to use your mooring when you're not on it, so long as they stay with the boat and move when you need them to. Fair enough. But, what doesn't seem so fair is that if the mooring then breaks, and their boat gets damaged, they can sue you as the mooring owner.
 
Why do you think that anyone has the right to use a mooring (unless it's specific to the one owned by the OP)? I own my mooring, I have no problem with others using it but they certainly don't have any rights to use it. Surely it's a bit like saying that anyone can park in your drive if your car isn't there.
 
I think it because I read it on these boards somewhere. Must be true then.

I suppose there are many circumstances in which a stranger's mooring might save the day, particularly as they are normally exactly in the best place to anchor, so it's only fair that mooring owners don't have the right to stop you using their mooring - which is another way of saying the same thing.

The bit where it becomes your liability seems unfair, but even then I can see how it might be reasonable:

If you tie up in a marina and the cleats fall off the pontoon, you would probably consider it the marina's liability. Fair enough cos you're paying them.

What if you're tied up against a town quay for free and the same thing happens? It's a bit like sueing the council if you trip over a loose paving slab, which I'm sure most people here wouldn't do, but could if they wanted.

if you rafted up alongside another boat (i.e. you're using them as a mooring), and their boat caught fire, taking yours with it, whose liability would that be?
 
I've looked at a few websites of harbour authorities etc, and a general assumption seems to be:

1) A condition of obtaining a licence is that the mooring are laid by profesionals, and are profesionally inspected annually. That obviously makes it difficult for an individual, but clearly not impossible.

2) No mooring, even if the physical apparatus is privately owned, is ever actually owned absolutely. No private individual or organisation can own the river bed so an essential element to the concept of "owning" a mooring is having a licence to place and use the equipment.

Mooring associations I thought have a kind of block lease on a set of moorings or designated area. and in turn sub-let the rights to individuals. I would have thought the mooring association itself would be obliged to have insurance cover for its operations.
 
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You are going to struggle to get cover if the mooring is not professionally made but as TK says, check with the your neighbours.

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Sorry but that's balderdash ! The OP is actually mis-directed or confused. Harbours require 3rd Party Cover on the BOAT not the mooring - to have a policy that can be claimed against if boat causes damage while in that location. The mooring itself is uninsurable.

I read odd times statements by forumites about 'professional laid' moorings being only able to insure ... in all the years I was moored in UK - only stipulation was that mooring should be checked at regular intervals and maintenance carried out. If it's laid to Harbour Masters recc'd specs or better - then that is fine.
 
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The mooring itself is uninsurable.

I read odd times statements by forumites about 'professional laid' moorings being only able to insure ... in all the years I was moored in UK - only stipulation was that mooring should be checked at regular intervals and maintenance carried out. If it's laid to Harbour Masters recc'd specs or better - then that is fine.

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A professional engaged in laying moorings will have a duty to carry out his work to an adequate standard. He will have general professional liability insurance to cover the consequences of any non-deliberate slip-up, just like a plumber or a gas engineer.

One can imagine theoretical but unlikely circumstances in which damage might result simply from the mooring itself. - Supposing he was negligent in attaching the buoy and it broke free, drifted into a shipping lane, wound round a propellor, ship drifted into a petroleum terminal, major fire costing millions.


Similarly, you might have personal liability insurance that covered you against all risks, possibly including the risk of someone tripping over your wheelbarrow parked on the pavement while you gathered up hedge trimmings.
But you would never find anyone to insure a wheel barrow on its own.

Again, that is insurance on the person, not the object itself.
 
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