Any recommendations for Insurance?

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I'm currently looking around for insurance for my 28 foot yacht.

Can anyone give a recommendation for a good Insurance company, or any horror stories?

The quotes I am getting back are reasonable enough and not much between them, but I'd rather go with a company who provide good service in the event of a claim.

Regards

Sean Foster
 
Try GJW Direct....

.. as a recommendation from an insurance broker.

Know boats,

Know the business &
have reasonable premiums (+ they will re-instate your NCD even after a long period of policy lapse)

Steve CRonin
 
Agree with GJW (personal experience).
St Margarets seems to have a fan club as well.

There are quite a few posts on this subject. Might be worth doing a search with keyword "Insurance".

Dave L.
Location: 50 51.0 N 1 18.6 W
 
There are several factors to bear in mind other than just the premium price.

1. Make sure that your sailing area is covered. Although our policy stated the fairly standard Brest to the Elbe, careful study revealed that this did not include Ireland. Since we were living in North Wales at the time, this was fairly important. In fact, although it cost no more, we had to have Irish waters included.
2. Despite the above we found that the Isle of Man was not included and had to have it written in.
3. Some companies will ask for a survey no matter what, whereas others will accept an existing one. Knox Johnstone's premium was about 50 pounds more than GJW Direct, but they were perfectly happy to accept our 2-year old survey. They have no requirement for a re-survey. GJW insisted on a new survey - cost several hundred pounds. Some companies want a re-survey at intervals.
4. Cover outside your nominated area may cost a lot more, even for a couple of weeks of your summer cruise. With Knox Johnstone there has been no additional premium for south of Brest and it appears that we shall pay no more for cover in the Baltic.
5. When we moved from N.Wales to Holland our premium did not increase.

We have never claimed on KJ but all enquiries to them on other matters have been handled efficiently.
 
They are helpful and accepted photographs in lue of a survey.There price compares well with most and they give a discount for RNLI Offshore members.
 
We are with Pantaenius (not sure of the spelling).

I can strongly recommend them for a couple of reasons:

(i) Of the companies I approached they had the simplest, most comprehensive policy. There are no 'weasel' words that might enable them to reject a claim.

(ii) There are no restrictions on the policy (e.g. night sailing, racing, single handing, minimum crew, having to over-winter ashore) that were present in many of the other policies

(iii) I have had to make a claim - and their claims handling service is excellent.

I've never heard a bad word said about them, I'm happy with them and will stay with them for the time
 
Seconded re Pantaenius, plus I believe their standard cruising area is wider than some.

Few years back I had a problem with Haven Knox Johnson, making a claim as a third party. Having salvaged their insured's yacht (dragged anchor in his absence) and saved them a lot of money in damage other than my own. They then argued the toss about wanting to patch up my dinghy. Not impressed.
 
Also with Pantaenius. Never had a claim, so can't say much about claim handling, other than having herad good reports about them. Contracts seem simple and clear and they agreed to increase the cruising area to include things like Azores without increasing the fee for it.
 
All insurance has been escalating since 11th Sept. Would be surprised if the others don't follow suit.
 
They upped mine by 22%, pointing out that they had kept premiums unchanged for over 10 years. Talked to them about it and their excuse was that the re-insurers, had gone up substantially end of last year. Appearantly a lot of pressure on the market already and then Bin Laden came to the rescue with a great excuse.

Checking around it seemed like most other insurers hiked their rates too. I thought my 22% rate hike was already outrageous, but the 40% to 65% that you mention sounds really out of any scope.
 
Very steep and hard to believe. I have just checked my contracts. Here are some data points:
Full insurance for the boat was 0.9% of the insurance sum per anum. Minus the 40% bonus it was 0.54%. It has changed to: 1.1% and 0.66% respectively.
This is without insurance tax, which was 15%.
It covered European waters up to 200 miles offshore with a northern limit of the line Wick Bergen. They didn't want more for extending this to further north last year and for including Azores, Madeira and Canary Islands for the coming season.
 
Have just this last week renewed with Panteanius and the cost was 4 pence less than last year...as above ,no weasel words and excellent cruising area as standard.....well satisfied so far...
 
Navigators & General

Found them very good so far. Rates have gone up, but not by much and some of that is possibly in the £3 million third party cover bit. They also cover club racing and the Round Island Race in June though the excess is high - but it is racing
 
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