Insurance For Sailing Yacht - is this about normal?

[ylop]

Might be worth having a play with Visicover (possibly using false details and saying you are U.K. resident) to understand what drives the cost. I liked them because I could play with things like who was allowed to use the boat, what cover I wanted for the tender etc and see in real time the impact on cost.

 

[Fr J Hackett]

Why would you make a false declaration on an insurance policy? If they chose not to pay out should you have a mishap or god forbid damage someone else's vessel who would you blame? The insurance company or yourself?

 

[PlanB]

A few years back, I spent quite a time trying to insure a Spanish reg car used in Spain but my only registered address was UK (long story).
I failed. It seems that car insurers are only interested in covering assets in the country where the registered keeper is resident.
Sounds like the same thing here.

 

[DownWest]

A few years back, I spent quite a time trying to insure a Spanish reg car used in Spain but my only registered address was UK (long story).
I failed. It seems that car insurers are only interested in covering assets in the country where the registered keeper is resident.
Sounds like the same thing here.

Bloke I knew asked about registering a Spanish car in UK , back in the 70s. (I had built a car from a shell, and reged it) After a few questions, it turned out to be a Spanish renter they had driven back and decided to keep.....Talk about a hot brick... Funnily enough, he went on to do very well in business.... Not so many friends though.

 

[DownWest]

Why would you make a false declaration on an insurance policy? If they chose not to pay out should you have a mishap or god forbid damage someone else's vessel who would you blame? The insurance company or yourself?

Good friend was sailing back from Madeira to Algarve after a long time on the hard. Got run down by a big ship. His insurers refused to pay out as they thought he was still on the hard. Simple error, but nothing like false declaration.

 

[dunedin]

Why would you make a false declaration on an insurance policy? If they chose not to pay out should you have a mishap or god forbid damage someone else's vessel who would you blame? The insurance company or yourself?

I assume ylop was suggesting using false details only in the insurance quotation tool, to experiment with a few variables to try to ascertain what factor is causing his premium to be so high.
Not to actually buy insurance using false details, but if one factor is causing the price to be high to try to find an alternative for that factor.

 

[Fr J Hackett]

I assume ylop was suggesting using false details only in the insurance quotation tool, to experiment with a few variables to try to ascertain what factor is causing his premium to be so high.
Not to actually buy insurance using false details, but if one factor is causing the price to be high to try to find an alternative for that factor.

That may be so but the problem comes when you get a quote you like but have been less than truthful in your enquiry and then accept it.

 

[ylop]

Why would you make a false declaration on an insurance policy? If they chose not to pay out should you have a mishap or god forbid damage someone else's vessel who would you blame? The insurance company or yourself?

I wasn’t suggesting taking out a policy with a false declaration, I was suggesting using the live quote tool with your actual and other details so you can understand which factors actually influence the price.

That may be so but the problem comes when you get a quote you like but have been less than truthful in your enquiry and then accept it.

You need to be stupid to do experimental quotes and then take a policy out with wrong parameters. However the possibility that weird quotes affect the pricing is why I suggested using “false details” so if you want to use them you can get a completely fresh quote with the final details you want.

It may be that Visicover will only cover Uk residents but you can even draw your operating area, list qualifications for you and other people you would trust to use the boat, tender cover, where you keep it etc but you can see how big a factor those things are in real time. Presumably those factors affect most insurers similarly.

To be honest, that’s a really long way to say what I thought was obvious and I was just pointing out a provider with a handy interactive pricing tool.

 

[ashtead]

Should anyone be interested in learning more on the points above research into location of risk rules will uncover the answers. Once you have worked out where the risk is located the general rule is the underwriter has to be authorised to write risks in that country or if a EU insurer with a permission to cover in another country . This cross border business can either by a branch on a freedom of establishment basis or from the corporate on a freedom of services bases. Clearly none of this now applies to uk so eu insurers either have a separate company or what’s termed a third country branch in uk. Why you run into the problems described is if a uk resident you get compensation scheme rights should your insurer collapse. Now I think generally boats are located for location of risk where registered (not an expert on marine location of risk rules though) if you follow car approach. In same way you can as a uk citizen find a broker who will insure your Spanish located real property you should be able via a large insurance broker be able to find cover . I guess brokers like Aon, Marsh and Willis tend to be global brokers I know who presumably have yacht divisions.

 

[Laser310]

I suggest you try navigators and general (underwritten by Zurich insurance) or one of the other large brokers.

I tried them; no insurance for US residents.., but possibly for live-aboard in Europe.

 

[Laser310]

As an update...

I have now gotten some quotes for about half that in my original post.

With pretty much all the enquiries I have made with British and EU insurance companies, the important thing is residence.

The fact that I am a British citizen , and the fact that the boat will be in Europe, and will be registered in Europe is all unimportant.

Pantaenius will not insure a US resident out of any of their European offices, and they are not doing new business in the US: their US office is effectively closed.

Navigators and General will not write a policy for a US resident.

The British brokers I have contacted have basically said "Yes, okay. let me contact our US based underwriters and see what I can come up with". In two cases, they have found insurance this way.

Now, my problem is that the boat that I got the quotes on has sold to someone else. The asking price was high compared with other examples that have come to market in the last year, so it might not have worked out anyway.

But at least I have learned where I can get cover, and can move quickly when I find something.