Yachtsman travel insurance

Champagne Murphy

Champagne Murphy

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Anyone know what’s going on at Bishop Slinner, aka Bluefin, favoured insurance provider at the RYA? I called this morning to try to take it trravel insurance only to be told that they can’t sell me any until at least next week?
Who are we using nowadays?
 
CM

I use Topsail - Yachtsman's Travel Insurance. They do both single trip and annual (the latter with differing levels of cover). Pricing is reasonable. Never made a claim, so can't give you a proper review of them.
 
Angele said:
CM

I use Topsail - Yachtsman's Travel Insurance. They do both single trip and annual (the latter with differing levels of cover). Pricing is reasonable. Never made a claim, so can't give you a proper review of them.
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+1. They do the insurance for tall ship sailing inc JST so yachting is no problem for them
 
Handy - I was just looking into this.

Angele said:
CM
I use Topsail - Yachtsman's Travel Insurance. They do both single trip and annual (the latter with differing levels of cover). Pricing is reasonable. Never made a claim, so can't give you a proper review of them.
Click to expand...

For people who are booking courses with sailing schools/charters, Topsail don't cover failure/insolvency of the operator.

From a UK point of view, the small operators are not ATOL bonded (they would have to be in the UK for that anyway, and a lot aren't), and don't take credit card payment (so aren't covered by UK credit card consumer protection), leaving one rather exposed.

Are their any other options?

EDIT:

Sorry for the thread drift/hijacking, but why start a new thread when and old one will do just as well :-)

Saw a rather old thread about a company I often use: http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?163326-Worldnomad-travel-insurance

They have supplier failure cover, and also cover sailing to this extent:

<<Am I covered if I'm sailing?
This information is for residents of United Kingdom only (Change)
If you want to go sailing/yachting while abroad, there’s cover available but you must choose the right adventure sports coverage depending on where you’ll be sailing so you’re covered should anything go wrong.

What’s covered

If sailing is on your ‘to do’ list, it’s as simple as adding ‘sailing’ when getting a quote. You will need to know a bit about where you’ll be sailing though, e.g. inside or outside coastal waters as there are some restrictions to this cover depending on what type of sailing you'll be doing so be aware of this.

When sailing outside coastal waters, you MUST be within 60 miles of a safe haven* or you will not be covered if something goes wrong.

*A 'safe haven' is a protected body of water used by marine craft for refuge from storms or heavy seas.

Be sure to add all the adventures and activities you plan to try on your trip when you buy your policy. You won’t be able to make changes after your policy is issued.



How it works:

To be covered at any level, you must be supervised by a qualified instructor/licensed operator or hold the appropriate membership, certification and/or licence from an accredited organisation for the activity.

If you suffer a serious illness or injury while out sailing, your policy can cover:

evacuation if urgent and medically necessary (by helicopter if medically necessary and available)
emergency medical expenses for treatment at the hospital or local medical facility and/or;
repatriation home if you’re seriously injured and unable to continue your trip.
If something happens, you or someone with you must contact the Emergency Medical Assistance Service immediately and remain in contact until you no longer require treatment or assistance.

Who pays for medical treatment (and by this we mean either you pay upfront and claim later or we pay) depends on what’s happened to you and the necessary treatment required.

What’s not covered

The policy isn’t designed to cover everything. Take the time to read the terms and conditions in the policy wording for full details on what is and isn’t covered. That way there are no surprises if you need to use it.

Here are the main things that aren’t covered:

your personal liability while you’re sailing/yachting .
sailing /yachting at a professional level i.e. you are being paid or sponsored or if you are competing at international events as a national representative.
‘search and rescue’ if you become lost at sea or at any other time.
anything else that's listed in the exclusions on the policy>>
 
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Paddy Fields said:
For people who are booking courses with sailing schools/charters, Topsail don't cover failure/insolvency of the operator.

From a UK point of view, the small operators are not ATOL bonded (they would have to be in the UK for that anyway, and a lot aren't), and don't take credit card payment (so aren't covered by UK credit card consumer protection), leaving one rather exposed.
Click to expand...

Indeed they don't, but then your alternative has the other common problem of requiring you to be within 60 miles of a safe haven. This just goes to show that it is important to decide beforehand what cover is important to you, and then to ensure that the insurance you are buying gives you that cover.

For me, the key thing I want is medical insurance, notwithstanding that I am sailing outside territorial waters and, potentially, more than 60 miles from a safe haven. And Topsail gives me that.

If cover against your sailing holiday provider going bust is what you need, then your alternative seems to do the job (as do many other general travel insurance policies that provide dangerous sports cover). I have to say, though, that I have always been able to pay for the (few) organised sailing holidays that I have bought with a credit card (and some have been ATOL covered too), so I am not familiar with the problem you describe.
 
Angele said:
Indeed they don't, but then your alternative has the other common problem of requiring you to be within 60 miles of a safe haven. This just goes to show that it is important to decide beforehand what cover is important to you, and then to ensure that the insurance you are buying gives you that cover.

For me, the key thing I want is medical insurance, notwithstanding that I am sailing outside territorial waters and, potentially, more than 60 miles from a safe haven. And Topsail gives me that.

If cover against your sailing holiday provider going bust is what you need, then your alternative seems to do the job (as do many other general travel insurance policies that provide dangerous sports cover). I have to say, though, that I have always been able to pay for the (few) organised sailing holidays that I have bought with a credit card (and some have been ATOL covered too), so I am not familiar with the problem you describe.
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Hi

Thanks for your answer.

Ive been 'supporting' a lot of the small operators, often husband and wife teams from the UK who have upped and offed for a life running a lifestyle business in the med. Its these guys who don't have any ATOL cover or accept credit cards/paypal (along with the buyer protection that goes with it). But like you say, you choose your insurance accordingly.

Regarding worldnomad, the restriction of remaining more or less costal is not a problem for me, and its nice to see them categorically include medical evacuation/repatriation while sailing.

However they explicitly exclude search & rescue and personal liability. How much of an issue would that be to a relative newbie, sailing with charters/sailing schools?

Dan

EDIT:

Ive just gone through the travel insurance policy wording for Topsail, Pantaenius and Bishop Skinner, and ONLY Topsail explicitly mentions cover for Search and Rescue in their policy. Now perplexed as to whether it is an important thing or not.

EDIT 2:
Just called Bishop Skinner, and they say they plan to add search and rescue to their policy this month.
 
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