Am I insured or not?

[Seven Spades]

I will never understand this. If I form a contract with a company to offer to insure my vessel what has it got to do with any government it makes no sense to me. If the vessel sinks they are going to reimburse me of it I hit another vessel they are going to cover me for that liability. It is a contract between two parties, I don't see that it is the businessopf the Turkish government (or any other) to stick their nose in.

 

[Seven Spades]

A few years ago I was told that Pantaenius withdrew cover for a number of boats in the middle of the World Arc! If true it would suggest that insurance companies do indeed have the option to rescind contracts but it must be limited because otherwise no one would have paid out over Covid. Now most insurance companies have removed pandemics from cover.

 

[Irish Rover]

I will never understand this. If I form a contract with a company to offer to insure my vessel what has it got to do with any government it makes no sense to me. If the vessel sinks they are going to reimburse me of it I hit another vessel they are going to cover me for that liability. It is a contract between two parties, I don't see that it is the businessopf the Turkish government (or any other) to stick their nose in.

You lost me, I'm afraid. I don't recall any mention of governments.

 

[Seven Spades]

Is was said that the underwriters were not "authorised" to underwrite insurance for Turkish residents. By that they meant authorised by the Turkish government.

 

[Irish Rover]

Is was said that the underwriters were not "authorised" to underwrite insurance for Turkish residents. By that they meant authorised by the Turkish government.

I didn't read it that way. My residency never came into it. I couldn’t envisage a situation where the government would prohibit foreign insurance companies covering foreign flagged boats which are in Türkiye on a temporarily admission basis.

 

[Bouba]

Now that Irish Rover has turned this into a trans national concern....may I suggest these people could help
Health & Life Insurance Section |

 

[Baggywrinkle]

I moved to Germany in 2000 and had a UK property on a fixed interest term. I was a German resident and knew it would be a pita to renew but as the end date drew nearer, I got a letter at my German address offering a new 5 year fixed rate - it was a reasonable saving so I signed up and returned the contract, everything went fine and I was moved to the new rate. We then decided to build a house in Germany a few years later, and I started thinking about the penalty clauses. There was an out where they would wave the penalty if your new mortgage was also with them. I checked their website and terms and condtions and they explicitly stated they would only lend to UK residents. Armed with this information I asked for a new mortgage to build a house in Germany .... they told me I was not eligible for a mortgage as a German resident and that I would have to pay the penalty fees to end the contract. I pointed out to them that they had already sold me one mortgage (the renewal) as a German resident, and they had posted the offer to my German address, so I didn't see why they couldn't do it again. They went quiet for a week and then waved the fees and I sold the house and paid off the mortgage.

Every company follows a set of rules, and when circumstances cause you to be operating outside the rules, then it is usually a question of finding the person in the organisation who is authorised to bend or ammend the rules on a case-by-case basis. Not much help if it is a "force majeure" but if it's just a company policy there is usually some wiggle room.

 

[Fr J Hackett]

Isn't it a case of financial regulation and being registered to operate in a specific country under its regulations. I hesitate to bring it up but didn't a certain act in 2016 cause similar problems of brokers not allowed to operate in certain countries.

 

[st599]

I will never understand this. If I form a contract with a company to offer to insure my vessel what has it got to do with any government it makes no sense to me. If the vessel sinks they are going to reimburse me of it I hit another vessel they are going to cover me for that liability. It is a contract between two parties, I don't see that it is the businessopf the Turkish government (or any other) to stick their nose in.

I used to have Skipper's Liability insurance with a German insurer based in Hamburg.

Following Brexit it was withdrawn - they were no longer legally allowed to insure a UK resident. To do so, they'd need to open a UK subsidiary and arrange financial passporting. Without this, it was illegal for them to trade in financial services in the UK.

Presumably, Türkiye has similar rules that the brokers fell foul of.

 

[jfm]

A few thoughts:

1. I agree with bjb

2. Many posts above aren't very correct, or are irrelevant to the point at issue (eg #89) but it would take too long to go through them.

3. No-one can be sure without seeing the contract (which has been denied to us by OP) but reading as far as possible between the lines and assuming English law applies (which no-one knows) it appears a valid insurance contract was created upon the renewal.

4. It's highly likely a retail small boat insurance contract like this has a 30 day cancellation clause. Big boat contracts have more limited cancellation rights, but with small boats it's invariably just 30 days.

5. It appears insurers gave written cancellation notice 10/4/2025. The insurance will therefore expire 10/5/2025 it seems. OP seems to think insurers have not given valid notice of cancellation, based on a line of thinking that they must do something more formal than speak to him with a same-day follow up email in order validly to cancel. See OP's comments on this in posts 4,29,49,55,65. But absent something expressly to the contrary in the contract (which no-one knows because OP is starving us of that information) OP seems just wrong on this: insurers have it seems already validly served notice of cancellation on 10/4/2025.

6. Thus, the solution here is to arrange some new insurance. It's a pointless waste of people's time to complain to ombudsman, pick over this mistake by the broker, and keep fighting this lost cause.

 

[ashtead]

I feel the topic might have been exhausted but just to explain pre the sale of the N&G brand cover was underwritten by Zurich (historically N&G was an insurer in its own right when owned by BAT but Z part 7 transferred the liabilities a few years after acquisition of the BAT financial services business). So when n&g brand was sold recently it’s entirely possible the cover is now provided by another underwriter instead of Z which either due to risk appetite or just because it doesn’t like the business placed by the X broker has backed away from the market and won’t renew covers. If the risk is vanilla as I suspect it is here then there’s no obligation to offer terms for renewal as other UW will offer terms. The broker has clearly made a mistake sending out renewal terms but the UW does not want this risk or cannot accept if not licenced to write in territory -as we don’t know either broker or insurer none of this is verifiable . For all we know X brokers business is highly unattractive due say to high loss ratios or indeed they are not growing book so the new UW wants rid of them. This situation cannot be changed by the broker unless of course they get a newUW but if they have performed poorly then taking on the legacy book isn’t attractive.

 

[Irish Rover]

which has been denied to us by OP

because OP is starving us of that information)

I hope you're not trying to make me feel guilty

 

[capnsensible]

When the most experienced person on the forums offers some free advice, I would thank them.....

 

[billskip]

When the most experienced person on the forums offers some free advice, I would thank them.....

If I had a £ for every thank you I deserved
....

 

[capnsensible]

If I had a £ for every thank you I deserved
....

You would have £2.

 

[Irish Rover]

I think I may have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory yesterday .
Today is D day.