Liveaboard Insurance

lille_bee

lille_bee

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Has anyone come across a sensible annual multi trip travel insurance that doesn't exclude sailing more than 12 miles off shore or trips of more than 120 days. By sensible I mean considerably less than £500.

Regards

john and Elsa
 
We pay Pantaenius £210 p.a. for wife and I (age 56 and 60) for multi trip worldwide travel insurance. Each trip duration max 90 days (if sailing) or 30 days (if not sailing). We come back to the UK in July/Aug, so 90 days is not a problem.
No doubt more expensive if older??
Feel this is a very reasonable price
 
Alyssa said:
We pay Pantaenius £210 p.a. for wife and I (age 56 and 60) for multi trip worldwide travel insurance. Each trip duration max 90 days (if sailing) or 30 days (if not sailing). We come back to the UK in July/Aug, so 90 days is not a problem.
No doubt more expensive if older??
Feel this is a very reasonable price
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It is reasonable, and we were more than satisfied with our Pantaenius policy at £170/year up to now (we're 42 and 53); but now we'd like to have stretches longer than 120 days, the premium has almost trebled!
 
lille_bee said:
It is reasonable, and we were more than satisfied with our Pantaenius policy at £170/year up to now (we're 42 and 53); but now we'd like to have stretches longer than 120 days, the premium has almost trebled!
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Of course the premium will shoot up - because the insurance company's exposure to risk has increased massively. Three things affect premiums - the risk of the person (s) - usually age and medical history, location and period of exposure. So, old(er) with medical problems, travelling in locations where recovery costs are high (out of territorial waters or remote locations) and for longer than "normal" holiday times equals high premiums.

Just been going through this myself, particularly the age thing and watching cover shrink and premiums rise - or even refusal to cover. So you have to either pay, or take the decision that you are going to "self insure" for some of the risk. So, I always have access to liquid funds to repatriate me from anywhere I travel and rely on EU healthcare for normal ailments.
 
Nearly all the longer term sailors I've met are not insured due to prohibitive cost, my plan is to insure FC for 1st year, thereafter TPFT. They have mostly been folk with relatively low value boats though, as am I...
 
>Nearly all the longer term sailors I've met are not insured due to prohibitive cost

I don't believe that's true. Insurance is a topic cruisers talk about and having met many hundreds of them I've yet to meet one who isn't insured. You can get away with it in the Caribbean but in Europe most marinas ask to see your policy. At least get third party.
 
Thread drift

djbreeze said:
Nearly all the longer term sailors I've met are not insured due to prohibitive cost, my plan is to insure FC for 1st year, thereafter TPFT. They have mostly been folk with relatively low value boats though, as am I...
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I think - the OP was referring to travel aka health insurance, not marine.

I'd suggest that, unless you're cruising outside the EC, health insurance is redundant. I've used my EHIC on three occasions during the last 10 years and have to say that the standard of care was comparable to or higher than the UK and waiting around considerably less. Outside the EC the premiums probably reflect the risks and anything "cheap" is likely to have several undesirable exclusions.
As an example it is usual to exclude any "previous" medical conditions - in one case of which I know a claim was rejected for an acute illness due to an underlying condition of which the claimant or his medics had no previous knowledge.

If you're talking about travel insurance ( delay, theft, loss) - my bank provides it "free" - however the exclusions are many and the cover limited. I can obtain higher quality for a similar fee by doing some research and shopping around.
Unfortunately you never know how good your insurers are, until it comes to making a claim, by which time it's too late.
 
Pantaenius or bust

Thanks one and all for the advice and guidance. It looks like we may just have to stick with Pantaenius then, even though the only time we have ever tried to make a travel insurance claim was in 2008 when XL went bust and then Pantaenius were not interested...... so is life.

Regards

John and Elsa

p.s. as SWMBO once said, "just make sure the boat is insured to the hilt, you I can replace but the boat... well... that's special".... ha!
 
>I think - the OP was referring to travel aka health insurance, not marine.

Err, lille bee said 'doesn't exclude sailing more than 12 miles off shore'. Seems like sailing to me. Health insurance is a whole different ball game. We have boat with Pantaenius and health with AXA PPP.
 
lille_bee said:
Has anyone come across a sensible annual multi trip travel insurance that doesn't exclude sailing more than 12 miles off shore or trips of more than 120 days. By sensible I mean considerably less than £500.

Regards

john and Elsa
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World Nomads will cover up to 60 miles from a safe haven. I checked with them and they confirmed that on a passage longer than that, the insurance would resume once you got within 60 miles again. Reasonable cost and can be taken out once away from home too.
 
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KellysEye said:
>Nearly all the longer term sailors I've met are not insured due to prohibitive cost

I don't believe that's true. Insurance is a topic cruisers talk about and having met many hundreds of them I've yet to meet one who isn't insured. You can get away with it in the Caribbean but in Europe most marinas ask to see your policy. At least get third party.
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I take your point and I am not talking about hundreds but the ones I've met and am speaking about were nearly all either RTW using ad hoc crew or cruising/liveaboarding in SE Asia or Carib, very rarely if ever staying in a marina and I can think of one who was insured...:)
 
Hi Jonic,

Thanks for the great tip about World Nomad. We left the UK in 05, but want to take out medical insurance before heading into SE Asia. All the UK companies we spoke to said "Can't sell you a policy if you've already left the UK", and companiesin Oz/NZ said "Can't sell you a policy if you are British". This company looks like just what we need.

Thanks again.
 
>I've met and am speaking about were nearly all either RTW using ad hoc crew or cruising/liveaboarding in SE Asia or Carib, very rarely if ever staying in a marina and I can think of one who was insured...

I can only say what a bunch of selfish idiots you've met. If you ever get hit by an uninsured boat I do hope you won't start whingeing.
 
Try this one: www.healthcareinternational.com we are happy with the cover and price from these people

It costs us £1000 per year for myself, wife and 2 kids, covers us world wide (including the USA for 60 days without notifying them). No limit on type, length of trip or time out of the UK, or where you go. We told them up front that we were living aboard, and where intended to travel to, and had no problems at all. All you need to do is take the usual precautions about vaccinations etc, when entering 'dodgy' places and you are covered.

We also found that the likes of Pantaenius or the any of the other so called yacht insurance companies didn't have a clue about live-aboards and you had to return to the UK at regular or the premium went out of control.

This company provides insurance for ex-pats, it wasn't available if you lived in the UK when we took it out. Luckily we were in Portugal when we started it. There was a thread on here (about 3 years ago) about medical insurance and somebody posted the link, now I'm returning the favour. Funny how things work out :-)
 
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jonic said:
World Nomads will cover up to 60 miles from a safe haven. I checked with them and they confirmed that on a passage longer than that, the insurance would resume once you got within 60 miles again. Reasonable cost and can be taken out once away from home too.
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So save any fellow wrinklies the trouble of looking it up, the World Nomad cover seems not to be available for anyone aged 60 or over.

For anyone else: www.worldnomads.com/
 
KellysEye said:
>I've met and am speaking about were nearly all either RTW using ad hoc crew or cruising/liveaboarding in SE Asia or Carib, very rarely if ever staying in a marina and I can think of one who was insured...

I can only say what a bunch of selfish idiots you've met. If you ever get hit by an uninsured boat I do hope you won't start whingeing.
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And how can you say that when you've never met them? You seem to have assumed that I'm somehow trying to encourage folk to not take up insurance?
 
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