Deliveries and Insurance

[[3889]]

My policy states:
"cover shall extend to any person navigating or in charge of the Vessel
with the consent of the Insured. However, such cover shall not include
any person operating, or employed by the operator of any ship yard,
repair yard, slipway, marina, yacht club, sales agency, delivery
contractor or similar "
So can a professional delivery skipper be added to the policy for a fee or do they need an entirely seperate policy for cover?

 

[dunedin]

The skipper of the vessel has command and therefore ultimate responsibility for the boat. As crew, either a volunteer or paid, you are not responsible if an incident occurs. The only insurance that you need to consider is for health and possessions - and this should be a specialist policy to cover people who are sailing.

Surely the quoted case where both the skipper and the crew got sued, and the latter reportedly lost his house, makes your statement incorrect / wishful thinking?

Or can you clarify why not. It can clearly have very serious consequences if get this call regarding liability insurance wrong.

 

[Tranona]

My policy states:
"cover shall extend to any person navigating or in charge of the Vessel
with the consent of the Insured. However, such cover shall not include
any person operating, or employed by the operator of any ship yard,
repair yard, slipway, marina, yacht club, sales agency, delivery
contractor or similar "
So can a professional delivery skipper be added to the policy for a fee or do they need an entirely seperate policy for cover?

See post#2. Insurers are quite used to this scenario. As I said, I just notified them of the plan, details of the additional equipment I was putting on the boat and qualifications of the professional skipper. Seem to remember the extra premium was around £80 to cover Corfu/UK over the existing Med cover on the policy.

 

[[3889]]

See post#2. Insurers are quite used to this scenario. As I said, I just notified them of the plan, details of the additional equipment I was putting on the boat and qualifications of the professional skipper. Seem to remember the extra premium was around £80 to cover Corfu/UK over the existing Med cover on the policy.

Yes, but "I was on board" seems to substantially alter the scenario from that which I posited, doesn't it?

 

[Uricanejack]

My policy states:
"cover shall extend to any person navigating or in charge of the Vessel
with the consent of the Insured. However, such cover shall not include
any person operating, or employed by the operator of any ship yard,
repair yard, slipway, marina, yacht club, sales agency, delivery
contractor or similar "
So can a professional delivery skipper be added to the policy for a fee or do they need an entirely seperate policy for cover?

Probably.
Even so. The only way to know for sure is to inform the insurance company what the plan is. And ask if the insurance company will cover the voyage with the crew you hired.

I expect the clause is based on the insurance companies expectation marinas, boat yards, and delivery companies have thier own insurance cover.

 

[Tranona]

Yes, but "I was on board" seems to substantially alter the scenario from that which I posited, doesn't it?

No, I don't think so. Maybe Pete can comment as he has to deal with this all the time.

 

[Uricanejack]

Surely the quoted case where both the skipper and the crew got sued, and the latter reportedly lost his house, makes your statement incorrect / wishful thinking?

Or can you clarify why not. It can clearly have very serious consequences if get this call regarding liability insurance wrong.

Not sure why the decision went the way it did. there just isn't enough information published in the article to say why the judge found the unfortunate friend 85% liable.

The question of crew liability or responsibility. To be responsible you must have authority. Liability I really don't know.
The Skipper may have the overall responsibility for the boat and would normally be in charge. except on a longer voyage the skipper will require rest and sleep while underway.
The person the skipper leaves in charge. Will be responsible, The responsibility and authority may be limited by requirement to call the skipper.
In some circumstances the person left in charge may find they have more responsibility than the skipper, eg if the skipper was not called.

how this is covered by insurance for liability. I'm not sure. The insurance should cover incidents while the crew member was on watch. If the insurance company was aware the particular crew member would be left in charge of the boat while on watch.

Certainly anyone left in charge of the boat would be responsible for the safety of the boat.

 

[alant]

Not sure why the decision went the way it did. there just isn't enough information published in the article to say why the judge found the unfortunate friend 85% liable.

The question of crew liability or responsibility. To be responsible you must have authority. Liability I really don't know.
The Skipper may have the overall responsibility for the boat and would normally be in charge. except on a longer voyage the skipper will require rest and sleep while underway.
The person the skipper leaves in charge. Will be responsible, The responsibility and authority may be limited by requirement to call the skipper.
In some circumstances the person left in charge may find they have more responsibility than the skipper, eg if the skipper was not called.

how this is covered by insurance for liability. I'm not sure. The insurance should cover incidents while the crew member was on watch. If the insurance company was aware the particular crew member would be left in charge of the boat while on watch.

Certainly anyone left in charge of the boat would be responsible for the safety of the boat.

From memory, the skipper had been hired by a Guernsey company selling the boat, being delivered to new owner in Weymouth (from Chichester). They took the Solent route & put Needles buoy as a waypoint. Conditions in Needles Channel were a bit frisky & boat (on auto pilot) smashed into the buoy. New owner declined any involvement because hadn't accepted delivery, insurance company paid out (think to the Guernsey company), then the insurance company took skipper/crew to court on the basis of "negligence/gross negligence" (is there a legal difference?), to reclaim value of boat (iirc a Nimbus). The crewman was an experienced rnli cox I seem to remember reading. A friend of the guys involved, posts on this forum, so would be able to clarify any missremembered facts.

 

[jfm]

The 2003 case was a fairline phantom owned by the jersey based fairline dealer.

There is a risk of getting mixed up here, as regards the negligence in the fairline case. If OP is crewing the boat commercially, then IMHO he must establish whether he is just an employee of the skipper or delivery co, or whether he has some form of delivery contract personally with the client/owner. If the former, nothing to worry about. If the latter, then he owes a direct contractual and tortious duty to the owner to sail the boat un-negligently (unless he has executed with some skill and precision a written contract excluding it) and here's my point: that duty will remain despite the owner's insurance contract for the boat.

So if the owner has called his insurers to make sure " the delivery trip is covered" then great, but the above duty of care owed by OP will absolutely not be changed one iota, which is exactly what happened to mr fairline driver. The insurers will pay the owner if the boat sinks but any potential claim the owner had against OP in negligence (both contractual and tortious) gets subrogated to insurance co and THEY come after OP. To cover this risk, OP needs to get his own personal insurance.

This is a slightly subtle point but imho do not deliver a boat (or even borrow a mate's) unless you have got your head around it. The fairline guy didn't get it and a lot of the posts above don't get it. The common clause quoted by quiddle in #21 above absolutely does not solve this problem.

 

[[3889]]

The 2003 case was a fairline phantom owned by the jersey based fairline dealer.

There is a risk of getting mixed up here, as regards the negligence in the fairline case. If OP is crewing the boat commercially, then IMHO he must establish whether he is just an employee of the skipper or delivery co, or whether he has some form of delivery contract personally with the client/owner. If the former, nothing to worry about. If the latter, then he owes a direct contractual and tortious duty to the owner to sail the boat un-negligently (unless he has executed with some skill and precision a written contract excluding it) and here's my point: that duty will remain despite the owner's insurance contract for the boat.

So if the owner has called his insurers to make sure " the delivery trip is covered" then great, but the above duty of care owed by OP will absolutely not be changed one iota, which is exactly what happened to mr fairline driver. The insurers will pay the owner if the boat sinks but any potential claim the owner had against OP in negligence (both contractual and tortious) gets subrogated to insurance co and THEY come after OP. To cover this risk, OP needs to get his own personal insurance.

This is a slightly subtle point but imho do not deliver a boat (or even borrow a mate's) unless you have got your head around it. The fairline guy didn't get it and a lot of the posts above don't get it. The common clause quoted by quiddle in #21 above absolutely does not solve this problem.

Thank you. I'm aware that you know your way around boat insurance and your advice is very useful, particularly in respect to my concurrent post re PL cover for delivery skippers.

 

[CCJ]

MAJOR WARNING

This was raised many years back and I thought I had a vague recollection:

look here: http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?83379-Yacht-delivery-warning

I seem to recall this (or a similar case) where a delivery skipper asked his pal if he would like to join him on delivering a mobo back to Poole. They programmed the GPS with the buoys they would use as Waypoints and during a nasty night with poor viz managed to hit the (?) Shingles buoy, punched a darn great hole in the mobo which they just managed to beach on the mainland.

The case went to court and the professional had liability insurance but his pal who was with him did not. The judge ruled that blame for the accident was a split on a 60:40 basis or something and the guy who thought he was along for a jolly was liable for £200,000 and lost his house.

A salutary warning.

I remember that case well, a life changing experience for that unfortunate pair