Being Vice-president of IMIS I would first like to express my
appreciation to my client Geoff Schultz who, despite his concern with
our service, was willing to post our responses so that others could
fairly form their own judgements about our agency.

Now I must say that it is heartwarming to find that others are willing
to defend our agency based on their own good experiences and/or based
on the facts of this particular case.

I am also glad to see the astute academic discussion of credit card
charges and when they should be made, to which I have something to
add:

From our perspective, since we are not an insurance company but rather
an insurance sales agency, our services are rendered at the time that
a policy is issued, so it is not material when the policy takes
effect. Of course, if a client wants to wait until the last minute to
receive his policy we are willing to accomodate an explicit request
that we delay a credit card charge and subsequent issuance of the
policy, but most cruisers are very glad of the opportunity to get
their policy in advance so that they have time to read it before it
actually takes effect.

~GARY GOLDEN, International Marine Insurance Services