can you help with commercial insurance?

[crazywaves]

Hi guys this may or may not be your thing but i have contacted approx 50+ companies for Commercial insurance for watersports and all have said no!
I want to run a waterskiing, wakeboarding and inflateable watertoy company on the south coast but they say the risk is higher than sky diving!

So Guys ANY Help would be Great and if your down my way call in all welcome

http://www.crazywaves.ltd.uk

if i cant get insurance very soon the venture will be cancelled, i have contacted the BMF & Marine southwest with no joy!

 

[Talbot]

isnt there a similar company in the midlands somewhere. or something similar at one og the leisure parks in East Anglia? surely they will have insurance, and might be prepared to let you know who with?

 

[philip_stevens]

Perhaps they are being frightened off because of things like Big Yellow - not too far from here.

 

[crazywaves]

[ QUOTE ]
Perhaps they are being frightened off because of things like Big Yellow - not too far from here.

[/ QUOTE ]


BIG YELLOW?

 

[philip_stevens]

Click on Big Yellow, and read the report.

 

[crazywaves]

Big Yellow were very lucky, its not what i'm doing but i see what you mean.

 

[akegustavson]

Perils of a small Pleasure Boat Insurance
or
The patient died because the doctor had a party


After dragging, bumping into the cliffs, suffering rig-breakdown and engine-trouble, a small Swedish pleasure boat
(< 8 m.) stranded on a beach on Ibiza in a local and sudden thunderstorm, which also stranded 4 more boats in the area during a few dramatic night hours.
The accident was reported immediately to the proper authorities and to her big international Insurance Company, which in 1998 had valued the boat at the sum insured, in agreement with the boat owner.


Under the veil of discretion the company will here be called MALFÉ, because there might also be other companies in Spain that take advantage of the Spanish Law in the same unfair manner as in this true story.(Hope they are scarce.) MALFÉ promised immediate salvage operations.

Ibiza is a small island where you can get by car to any beach within 1 hour. MALFÉ´s surveyor was delayed 32 hours and startled by, immediately and without explanation, saying that the boat was insured at a very low value. The insured value for the 30 year old boat was well equivalent to the purchase price of similar boats on the Spanish boat market and on Internet.

Salvage operations were then delayed 6 days during which the boat bumped against the rocks on the beach by every wave and received more damages and also formed an evident danger to children and others playing on the beach.
The delay was blamed on “fiestas y permisos”. Fax and telephone calls were in vain.
Not until a lawyer gave it a push did MALFÉ move its behind and set about the salvage.
The salvage was done incautiously and the transport was downright unprofessional. The boat received additional damage. In spite of many accessible boat yards nearby, the boat was then transported from the far east end of the island to the western part and laid up in a boat yard, choosen by MALFÉ.

MALFÉ could now be sure that the repair costs would exceed ¾ of the insured value of the boat, and therefore could be declared by MALFÉ as a “total constructive loss”.
The policy-holder asked for a professional survey to determine what damages were caused by the stranding and what damages were caused by the delay and the bad transport, beyond the control of the boat owner.
MALFÉ only promised to submit a tender for the repairs the following day. Nothing more.

When the tender finally arrived, 24 days later, it was impudently high priced, and contained a claim for more than 1500 € for just making the tender!
A comparison later with a well reputed boat yard on the mainland showed that the repairs could be done there with a 5 year guarantee for much less than half the price offered by the boat yard choosen by MALFÉ, and for well under ¾ of the insured value. That tender was free.

54 days after the accident MALFÉ offered indemnity for “total constructive loss”. However, with very excessive deductions for salvage, transport and insured, but undamaged, equipment (tender raft, VHF etc.).
MALFÉ also informed the policy-holder that he still was owner of the boat and responsible for all present and future claims from the expensive boat yard.
MALFÉ had now managed to put the policy-holder in a real fix, without giving the policy-holder the slightest opportunity of choice. Powerless and shocked, but still in good faith, the elderly policy-holder accepted MALFÉ´s stingy offer.
A number of questions, in writing, regarding the responsibilities for the damages caused by the delay and by those involved were sent to MALFÉ three times during the following months.
Up to now nothing but a shameful silence is heard.

The policy-holder then consulted the consumer organisation OMIC in a futile effort to at least reduce the absurd tender. Various efforts were also made to sell the boat in existing condition.

On a visit to Ibiza by car a few weeks later to pick up personal items and the deducted, but undamaged, equipment from the boat, the MALFÉ-picked boat-yard manager did not admit the policy-holder access to the boat!!! A presumptive buyer was also not admitted to value the boat.

Taught by these experiences the policy-holder now offered the boat as a donation to the island´s local authorities as a training object for a trade school or other public institution.

Around 3 months later a retired insurance broker and friend told the policy-holder that he had probably been cheated by MALFÉ. In his opinion MALFÉ ought to be considered legal owner of the boat since the date of the accident and thus responsible for all subsequent costs, because the policy-holder had accepted and received indemnity for “total constructive loss”.
This seemed logical and a complaint was sent to MALFÉ, which resulted in a small sum of consolation, called “miscalculation”. It was rejected by the policy-holder.
A new complaint was then sent to “Dirección General de Seguros y Fondos de Pensiones” (DGS) together with copies of photos and all documents and a very detailed report of the course of events in broken Spanish.

The dreary answer from DGS showed that MALFÉ can legally classify a small pleasure boat insurance as a “high risk insurance” by the interpretation of the Spanish Law 50/1980, Art. 107.2.
Thereby preventing the policy-holders from access to the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) schemes that have been developed across Europe.

Some other European insurance companies, obviously more reliable than MALFÉ, classify a small pleasure boat insurance more ethical as a common “damage insurance”, for instance as a vintage car insurance. Many companies also permit the policy holder to choose the boat yard. The wording “high risk” is also hard to accept since most insurance companies are reinsured in a P & I Club.

By means of this Law interpretation MALFÉ forces the policy-holders to solve their disputes before a Court of Law, which can be very expensive, lengthy and tiring. Most people give in and pocket their pride.
In addition it seems like these boat owners also are prevented from access to “legal aid”, usually included in a common “damage insurance” (Dir. 87/344/CEE) The accident stricken, money worried and judicially untrained policy-holders are also in this way unconsciously prevented from access to the fast, efficient and economical arbitrary system (ADR) created by EU for consumer protection, and which also includes translation services.

To make matters worse MALFÉ also denies reimbursement of already paid insurance premium for the time after a total loss.
No wonder if MALFÉ tops the insurance companies´s League of Reclamations.

Every year about 1500 pleasure boats meet with such grave accidents in Spanish waters that they have to be rescued by the Spanish Lifeboat Service, Salvamento Maritimo. Many more have grave accidents (with estimated repair costs near ¾ of insured value), in harbours and ashore without being rescued by Salvamento Maritimo.

That raise the question:
Is it systemized by MALFÉ?; to all of a sudden consider a small boat as subvalued when stricken by a major accident; to deliberately delay salvages and settlements of claims, and; to aggravate damages with the intent to force unforeseeable expenses upon the policy-holders???
In that case it obviously exists an urgent necessity of making the rules clearer!!!
A complaint with this intention has been sent to the EU-commissions concerned.

Or, is it the economical relations between the MALFÉ-employed surveyors and their picked salvage operators and boat yard owners that ought to be scrutinized???
In that case; What can the policy-holder do???

Boat owners and other readers ought to be able to draw their own conclusions from this authentic story and may receive more details from the author through the Editor of this publication.
Awaiting response the author has cancelled all his insurances with MALFÉ.

Well, what happened to the boat after that?, some reader might wonder.
The boat was donated to a Navigation School on the mainland in exchange for taking over the running expenses and the absurd tender cost from the expensive boat yard.
Besides these expenses and the damage repairs, the boat have now also received a thorough renovation, a complete osmosis treatment, a full painting and a total survey for a Seaworthiness Certificate and a Spanish Boat Matriculation.
From a reliable source, these total expenses, including the survey, will by far not come up to the costs demanded from the Swedish policy holder - for the repairs alone.

The motive of this article is to warn small pleasure boat owners for the perils in their insurance if their insurance company considers their boat a “high risk” in case of a major accident. (Estimated repaircost near ¾ of the insured value.)
Hopefully it will also produce a debate about the exposed position of the small pleasure boat owners in Spain and elsewhere.

Don Quijote del Mar. (76)