GrahamM376
Well-Known Member
Following comments on this thread - http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread...nsurance-claim - and others on this forum, I have been having correspondence over the last couple of weeks with a not too helpful member of staff at Towergate trying to resolve the "Loss or Damage due to Corrosion" issue.
Having finally lost patience this morning, I sent a formal complaint letter and, in under an hour, was telephoned by their managing director. We had a friendly discussion and I was invited to submit some suggestions about wording. Following this, he had discussions with their underwriters and I have just received the following email, which satisfies me enough to stay with them:-
Graham
Below is a summary of Towergate’s official position on corrosion related problems. This statement has been signed off by the senior underwriter at RSA, our lead insurer.
Hopefully it clarifies our position until we can reword our policy to more accurately reflect our intentions of protecting the responsible owner.
Firstly it is always the intention of Towergate to treat all its customers fairly.
If an insured regularly maintains his craft and has taken reasonable precautions to regularly inspect areas of the craft that would be susceptible to corrosive action then:
· Towergate would not avoid claims that occurred as a result of the failure of a part due to corrosion that the owner of the vessel could not have reasonably been aware of.
· Under the current wording Towergate has paid claims for damage that has occurred as a result faults including corrosion that the policyholder could not have known about.
· Also under the current wording Towergate has paid claims for rigging failures due to crevice corrosion that could not have reasonable been detected during normal inspection.
However if an owner is aware of a defect in his craft (including defects due to corrosion) and takes little or no remedial action, or takes no action to inspect /regularly maintain the craft to prevent such an event occurring, I hope you will agree it would be unreasonable to expect Insurers to pay for damage that could have reasonably been avoided had some very basic care and due diligence been applied to protect the craft.
We are looking at ways we could re-define “Corrosion” that could embrace the sentiments above but this is proving very tricky to do – hence the interpretation. Many other Yacht Insurers in our market also exclude “Corrosion” in some form, as we do. This has been brought about by many poor experiences across the industry on primarily smaller craft that are not regularly maintained /inspected and have produced large losses that unfortunately the diligent owners eventually end up paying for through increased premiums to fund such avoidable losses.
We are happy for you to reproduce any of the above on any of the discussion groups. In the meantime, thank you for your suggestions which we will certainly take on board when looking at the revised wording.
Kind regards
Nigel
Having finally lost patience this morning, I sent a formal complaint letter and, in under an hour, was telephoned by their managing director. We had a friendly discussion and I was invited to submit some suggestions about wording. Following this, he had discussions with their underwriters and I have just received the following email, which satisfies me enough to stay with them:-
Graham
Below is a summary of Towergate’s official position on corrosion related problems. This statement has been signed off by the senior underwriter at RSA, our lead insurer.
Hopefully it clarifies our position until we can reword our policy to more accurately reflect our intentions of protecting the responsible owner.
Firstly it is always the intention of Towergate to treat all its customers fairly.
If an insured regularly maintains his craft and has taken reasonable precautions to regularly inspect areas of the craft that would be susceptible to corrosive action then:
· Towergate would not avoid claims that occurred as a result of the failure of a part due to corrosion that the owner of the vessel could not have reasonably been aware of.
· Under the current wording Towergate has paid claims for damage that has occurred as a result faults including corrosion that the policyholder could not have known about.
· Also under the current wording Towergate has paid claims for rigging failures due to crevice corrosion that could not have reasonable been detected during normal inspection.
However if an owner is aware of a defect in his craft (including defects due to corrosion) and takes little or no remedial action, or takes no action to inspect /regularly maintain the craft to prevent such an event occurring, I hope you will agree it would be unreasonable to expect Insurers to pay for damage that could have reasonably been avoided had some very basic care and due diligence been applied to protect the craft.
We are looking at ways we could re-define “Corrosion” that could embrace the sentiments above but this is proving very tricky to do – hence the interpretation. Many other Yacht Insurers in our market also exclude “Corrosion” in some form, as we do. This has been brought about by many poor experiences across the industry on primarily smaller craft that are not regularly maintained /inspected and have produced large losses that unfortunately the diligent owners eventually end up paying for through increased premiums to fund such avoidable losses.
We are happy for you to reproduce any of the above on any of the discussion groups. In the meantime, thank you for your suggestions which we will certainly take on board when looking at the revised wording.
Kind regards
Nigel
