Insurance Costs and factors

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wytco0

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I have posted before that I am not a great fan of insurance in general and I tend to 'self insure' when possible or sensible, however in my search for boats I have recently looked at a few in the £13-15k range which is more than I would want to simply write off to experience and so I have been thinking more about insurance.

I am essentially a novice and I am looking at sailing boats in the 25-30 foot range, I am after an approximate idea of what insurance would cost both for 3rd party only and comprehensive.

I don't know what criteria the underwriters use for costing boat insurance, I assume the value at risk is one factor but do they price in where the boat is kept, how it is used, the qulifications of the owner etc?

Can anyone enlighten me on the key points of boat insurance and give me some ball park figures, assuming that the boat is something like a Hunter Horizon 272 valued at 15k
 
They factor in value of boat, where kept (marina = cheaper), type of sailing (racing = more expensive), experience of skipper (somewhat; I have no bits of paper, but "sailing since I was 6 years old" was good enough for them), any bits and pieces separately insured, location.

FWIW I pay around £350 for a Moody 31, kept in a marina for cruising. The non-marina berthing cost me around £30 odd extra last year - the marina was new and not yet on the insurance company's books.

Third party only probably won't make a lot of difference - you can cause an awful lot of damage with a yacht, the standard third party cover is £3,000,000. In other words, the cost of the third party insurance is probably the majority of the premium anyway. A yacht with a value of a few thousand can still badly bend a vessel with a much higher value, and if it happens to be a commercial vessel you start having to figure in cargo costs, penalties and so on..... And if you sink in deep water, the MCA may require the wreck to be recovered; again not cheap.
 
NDH said:
I presume you are just trying to avoid contacting 4 or 5 companies for a quote but personal details can make all the difference. They all do online quick quotes.
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Just wanted to get a rough idea, I don’t have a boat yet.

jordanbasset said:
Should not pay more than a couple of hundred for fully comp. Whatever you do I strongly suggest you get atleast third party insurance as claims of other boats can be very expensive.
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This is exactly what I was after thanks jordanbasset.

AntarcticPilot said:
…
Third party only probably won't make a lot of difference - you can cause an awful lot of damage with a yacht, the standard third party cover is £3,000,000. In other words, the cost of the third party insurance is probably the majority of the premium anyway. A yacht with a value of a few thousand can still badly bend a vessel with a much higher value, and if it happens to be a commercial vessel you start having to figure in cargo costs, penalties and so on..... And if you sink in deep water, the MCA may require the wreck to be recovered; again not cheap.
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Thanks AntarticPilot, for a few hundred comprehensive looks sensible.
 
Please get third party insurance.

Writing off your own boat is an annoyance.

Writing of someone else's boat could cost you everything you own.

Writing off someone else's very expensive boat could cost you everything you own and everything they own.

IMHO sailing without third party cover should be an offence, just like it is with driving. The fact that it isn't is one of the reasons that boat insurance is so expensive. I am effectively paying for the fact tht some numpty in a PWC may blow up my yacht and my insurance company will have no one to fall back on. They reflect that in MY premium.
 
Thanks for comments re 3rd party, I should have been clearer at the start about what I meant, in general I am not keen on insuring things of relatively low value and I am happy to cover any losses myself, when I mentioned 'self insure' I meant with regard to my losses, 3rd party is another matter and I would take out 3rd party if I felt there was any chance of me being liable for large costs due to my actions.

What I was really trying to find out here is how much cover of my own losses would cost and it seems that the premiums above 3rd party are not huge, so if I do go for a £15k boat I will probably get comprehensive cover, if I go for a £3k boat I would instinctively go for 3rd party only as I would be happy to cover the total loss, however if comprehensive is only a small increment above 3rd party the I may well go comprehensive even for low value boat.
 
wytco0 said:
Thanks for comments re 3rd party, I should have been clearer at the start about what I meant, in general I am not keen on insuring things of relatively low value and I am happy to cover any losses myself, when I mentioned 'self insure' I meant with regard to my losses, 3rd party is anotheAr matter and I would take out 3rd party if I felt there was any chance of me being liable for large costs due to my actions.

What I was really trying to find out here is how much cover of my own losses would cost and it seems that the premiums above 3rd party are not huge, so if I do go for a £15k boat I will probably get comprehensive cover, if I go for a £3k boat I would instinctively go for 3rd party only as I would be happy to cover the total loss, however if comprehensive is only a small increment above 3rd party the I may well go comprehensive even for low value boat.
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Sounds like a sensible approach to me. When we were getting quotes there actually seemed very little difference.

One thing to explore is whether the 3rd party cover would come automatically with yourhoese owners policy. If you are happy to self insure the boat itself, and I actually agree with that approach, you may find that you already have cover.
 
wytco0 said:
I have posted before that I am not a great fan of insurance in general and I tend to 'self insure' when possible or sensible, however in my search for boats I have recently looked at a few in the £13-15k range which is more than I would want to simply write off to experience and so I have been thinking more about insurance.

I am essentially a novice and I am looking at sailing boats in the 25-30 foot range, I am after an approximate idea of what insurance would cost both for 3rd party only and comprehensive.

I don't know what criteria the underwriters use for costing boat insurance, I assume the value at risk is one factor but do they price in where the boat is kept, how it is used, the qulifications of the owner etc?

Can anyone enlighten me on the key points of boat insurance and give me some ball park figures, assuming that the boat is something like a Hunter Horizon 272 valued at 15k
Click to expand...

I'm using Yachtline and for my old wooden boat, value circa £9Kand the policy costs £120 a year.

I think that there is a value and size limit, below which you self declare the state of the boat and so I dont need a survey.Not sure what these are though but I am sure a quick call will help clarify.

They were interested in my experence and it is a condition that the boat is kept in a marina as its home berth and that it is laid up from 1st November to 1st April. There are also restrictions on the crusing ground but the one allowed is massive.

This policy suits me well because I'm more interested in the £3M public liability cover than any sort of replacement for kit, rig, or in the worst case the boat herself. (Dont get me wrong if somthing does go wrong I would like to be able to claim for kit / boat but its not my prime motivator). So I dont want to be spending on a survey and having to keep reciepts for everything I buy and put onboard. I dont want to be out sailing in the winter and I love being able to walk ashore in the marina because I spend a lot of time working on board.

I've not had a claim but in pre-sale and renewal the guys have been very helpful and understanding.
 
wytco0 said:
What I was really trying to find out here is how much cover of my own losses would cost and it seems that the premiums above 3rd party are not huge, so if I do go for a £15k boat I will probably get comprehensive cover, if I go for a £3k boat I would instinctively go for 3rd party only as I would be happy to cover the total loss, however if comprehensive is only a small increment above 3rd party the I may well go comprehensive even for low value boat.
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Missed this bit - I was looking for 3rd party only but the Yachtline fully comp cover was cheaper than most of the other quotes. So I ended up fully comp....
 
I don't usually buy insurance unless it's illegal not to have it, but I do insure my boat fully comp as I can do it economically and also it's my home. I use Yachting 24, they will insure an older boat fully comp without survey, my 40 year old Albin Vega (27ft) costs less than £160. There are other online providers where you can buy 3rd party for about £90...
 
wytco0 said:
I am essentially a novice and I am looking at sailing boats in the 25-30 foot range, I am after an approximate idea of what insurance would cost both for 3rd party only and comprehensive.

Can anyone enlighten me on the key points of boat insurance and give me some ball park figures, assuming that the boat is something like a Hunter Horizon 272 valued at 15k
Click to expand...

Get some example quotes - compared with car/house/motorbike/life insurance, comp boat insurance (for our boat) is *soo* cheap that I find it's /almost/ not worth shopping around.

£170 p/a for a Hunter 27 on swinging mooring (summer), marina or ashore (winter) - I'd could probably save that much by changing energy suppliers (again).
 
The third party element is largely fixed - that is varies little according to the value of the boat, although some types of boats, for example speed boats are higher risk than sailing cruisers. Once you have the basic cover, insurance of hull and machinery is largely value related, modified by location, range of use and type of mooring. Generally qualifications don't come into it, although experience may, but more in respct of not quoting at all if they don't like the combination of person/boat/type of use. Claims record is the big differentiator, so 3 or 4 years of no claims earn typically 20% discount. The size of the voluntary excess also makes a difference as they hate low value claims.

Overal, though insurance is cheap because the risk is very low.
 
I use Towergate, and consider it an outstanding bargain. It costs me a fraction of a percent of the value of the boat for very broad coverage and 3 million of third party liability. No survey, and a very simple application process. When I moved from a marina berth to a mid-river mooring in the Hamble, they didn't blink an eye and did not increase my small premium.

I can't imagine self-insuring something like a yacht, where the risks are small but the consequences catastrophic, should something happen. It's a classic case for insurance.
 
Just going through the usual exercise as its renewal time. Have had wildly differing quotes and despite telling each company the list of requirements they all seem to ignore them and send back what they think I want.

Amazingly the ones that follow up with a phone call can always manage to shave a bit more off. I have also noticed an introduction of administration fee and in small print another admin fee if you change any details mid term.

It reminds me of a TV ad reeling in the fishing line......Gotcha.
 
I can't claim wide experience of marine insurance, but one thing is that I'd rather insure with a company that appears to understand what sailing is about rather than one that doesn't. One year, my brokers came up with a significantly cheaper quote for insurance from a main-stream insurance company (I think AXA). However, on looking through the policy terms and conditions, it was rapidly clear that they had been drafted by someone without the slightest understanding of yachting; I can't recall specific things, but overall the policy simply didn't make much sense, failing to cover everyday things and offering cover for impossibilities. I did call the brokers to try and iron out a few things, but the deeper I went into it, the more obvious it became that the insurers simply didn't understand what they were insuring. So, I stuck with HKJ because it is clear from the policy that they do have some understanding of what they are insuring!

Frankly, the cost of yacht insurance is so low that as long as the premium is "in the ballpark", I don't worry too much, and I am sailing on a budget. Maybe I could save a little by shopping around, but it would be peanuts for the comprehensive insurance I want - I can't take a loss of the value of the boat!

Another thing is that I'd NEVER be without insurance. My Dad lost out big-time because of an accident to his yacht that happened when he had allowed the policy to lapse. I guess he was lucky that the accident only involved his own boat.
 
As a broad rule UFO thumb, comp insurance will cost from maybe 200at the bottom of the market (some companies have a minimum premium below which it isn't worth writing a policy) up to .5% of the insured value when that is around 100k. Mine is just on 350 for a 70k boat inc racing and single handing.

They load for dodgy areas, past claims, experience etc as wel as sailing areaq
 
wotayottie said:
As a broad rule UFO thumb, comp insurance will cost from maybe 200at the bottom of the market (some companies have a minimum premium below which it isn't worth writing a policy) up to .5% of the insured value when that is around 100k. Mine is just on 350 for a 70k boat inc racing and single handing.

They load for dodgy areas, past claims, experience etc as wel as sailing areaq
Click to expand...

Your %age rule only works in the middle. It is low for a low valued boat - my old boat at £14k it comes out at 1.2% because of the high proportion of the premium that covers third party risks, and is low for a high valued boat. Much more depends on where you keep and use your boat. My other boat is similar value to yours and the premium similar, but when I had it in Corfu, the premium was about 30% higher and in the year I sailed it back to the UK there was a further increase of about 20% of the premium to cover going into the Atlantic and across the Bay of Biscay.
 
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