DAKA
Well-Known Member
John, thanks for response in detail. I'll reply using numbers that correspond to your "firstly" etc. I have no axe to grind here. I just read your contract and think in good faith that your policy contained several clauses that were heavily stacked against the customer, and I put my views on here. I’m always happy to be corrected if wrong and will back down if that occurs, though as you'll see below I don't agree much of what you write on this occasion
1. I'm amazed you are so proud of yourself on this one. You have a contract that even you admit is poor, and it's been like that since at least May 2012, and you still haven't got round to fixing it. You say on here that you'll ignore the unfair wording and pay out, but why don't you just fix it? The "due to" reason you give for the delay holds no water as an excuse. Look, when folks have a couple of million quid bobbing around on the sea they want an enforceable contract giving them sensible cover, not a contract giving poor cover and then a forum post from a director saying "don't worry it will be ok". (And without researching I can't see if you are underwriter/broker/etc so even your assurance's watertightness is hard to be sure about).
2a. Your post here is pretty misleading. The Marine Insurance Act makes absolutely no requirement for an unseaworthiness exclusion to be drafted as harshly as yours is. If you disagree, quote me the section number. What you wrote there is I'm afraid a pretty shoddy attempt at blaming regulation+law for what you have chosen to do.
b. I agree the fault with the boat would have to be causative of the loss in order for the insurer to escape liability, but that's always the case, so much so that I thought it not worth mentioning. However if I was wrong not to mention that particular point then I apologise and say now that I agree with you on that point.
c. However here is the really annoying part of your post: you wrote: "In addition it would have to be as a result of something an insured should have been aware of" (my emphasis) but it is crystal clear that your insurance policy contains no such relief for the insured. Your policy as a matter of simple English excludes cover if the loss was caused by a fault in the boat at start of voyage and there is no exception for a fault so obscure that it could not be said that a reasonable owner should have been aware of it. I might as well quote your policy (blue text) so that readers can see :
The Insured is not covered for: ... 3.4 any loss, damage, liability or expense arising from the Unseaworthiness of the Vessel; and Unseaworthinessmeans the Vessel is not reasonably fit in all respects to encounter the conditions that may reasonably be anticipated in respect of any use to which it is put on any navigable waterway.
Nothing in those words excludes a fault in the boat of a type which the owner didn't ought to be aware of. The two "reasonably"s refer to fitness of the vessel and anticipations of conditions of the voyage, not the owner's knowledge of the fault that will this afternoon sink the vessel
3. No worries. Everyone can decide for themselves if they're happy with a proposed excess or not. I was just pointing out that your sterngear excess on a large-ish motorboat is £20k, which is the kinda same thing as not being insured, and is the highest I've ever been quoted. People can decide freely, and I was merely pointing out the facts
4a. You say my comments are "totally incorrect". Your policy (not your notes) says "If the Insured provides information about the value of the Vessel ... which is false, this insurance may not be valid and Insurers may decline to pay any claim." The trigger event for non payment by insurer is not merely false information about the price paid for the boat as your post incorrectly says, it is also false information later about the (then) value of the boat. You then go on to say "false" and "wrong" are "very different". Exactly how? In my book, something can be false with no bad intent on the part of the person saying it, ie it can be false in good faith, so to speak. Are you saying "false" means something done in bad faith, ie a lie, basically? If you aren't then my point stands. If you are, then how does this wrong/false distinction get squared away with your clause 8.5 which clearly includes within the meaning of "false" mere innocent errors? Thus i stand by my criticisms of your clauses dealing with the boat's value. Sure, you may be a super customer-service firm and you might not apply the clauses as harshly as I'm saying they could be applied, but then why not do a proper job and remove your discretion on this, and create enforceable liabilities? Why should the customer have to rely on your niceness (which i don't doubt exists as evidenced by the Garmin prize - there's nothing personal meant here) rather than an enforceable contract? Which, in essence, is my point #1 and #4 as well.
4b. Again, we have the contract versus your niceness point. You emphasised the word "may" as if that defeats my criticisms. It doesn’t. Look, a good insurance policy puts an enforceable liability on the insurer to pay in the defined circumstances. It doesn't merely give the insurer discretion/choice about paying. He has that has anyway. But we are covering the same ground as above...
5. On personal liability you can see that i said in my post above that I was losing interest by this stage. Your policy didn't make the cut due to all the other things, so these limits didn't matter to me. Now because of these exchanges let’s look at this. There is indeed a personal injury limit of £3m which is nice and high, good stuff, but policyholders need to note this £3m applies to what I’ll call “remote” third parties only. It does not apply if you as boat owner are found to have negligently caused injuries to your guests (see the MBY column on this point 4 months ago by Brian from Ashfords the marine lawyers), to the broker/surveyor/prospective customer on the sea trial when you are selling it, to the guy/girl delivering your croissants in the morning who trips on the hosepipe you shouldn't have left on the passerelle, and a million other similar circumstances. It only applies to remote third parties eg if you negligently collide with another boat and injure someone on board it. This is totally different from UK car insurance: if someone injures a friend and passenger by negligent driving, the car policy pays out. Folks can make their own minds up on this one, but I want them to be aware of this distinction, and so far I’m the only one pointing out because you sure aren’t. Indeed, your statement "all our policies in the UK provide a minimum of £3 million for damage or injuries to third parties that you may be legally liable for" is imho a pretty poor description. If I’m wrong, and the boat owner is insured in the croissant guy/girl scenario, then please point me to the clause and I’ll retract of course and apologise
Best wishes
I'm amazed at the amount of time you manage to dedicate to checking wordings , and your a natural at understanding the jargon, in fact I'm confident you have a greater understanding than 99% or higher of claims handlers !
It appears to take an Insurer over 6 months to make a few changes in wordings.
HKJ as you know have just won a customer service award, awarded by YBW , they clearly try very hard to keep their customers happy ( I am one such happy customer in possession of one of the poorly worded policies , HKJ sent me an endorsement to override the error, simple temporary fix and legally binding so that bits resolved).
If you were to redirect your attention from slagging off to fixing the cover (taking the best cover from competitors and creating the widest marine policy cover on the market for the best customer service marine company in the UK ) then perhaps all forum readers could at last find a policy they can relax with.
If your current 'free time' was re directed to writing such a policy perhaps you could offer a discounted rate that an Insurer would be happy to pay instead of churning out a policy containing errors and perceived unreasonable exclusions which loose valuable custom .
How much would it cost (ball park) to create such a policy in cooperation with HKJ, and obviously the next question would be directed toward HKJ, are you interested in providing the best policy cover on the market ?
and to the forum
Would you be happy to pay a little extra for the best policy ?
Say your renewal @ £300 and you are offered better cover for £400 , what would you choose ?
Small price to pay for reassurance or would you feel you were subsidising old wrecks ? you know the ones, covered in green not been off the mooring for 5 years , not been lifted or rigging checked for 10 years, someone buys it, sails it round Dover in a F6-7 , gets RNLI out and has gets it refitted at HKJ (ultimately your) expense ????????????
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Not everybody will get it 