Insurance
 

Does anyone have any leads on good deals in boat insurance. My policy
renewal premium is just about double. Must pay for the hurricanes I guess.

No doubt. Try NMU (National Marine Underwriters) in Annapolis, MD.
My insurance doubled a couple of years ago and NMU wrote me a nice
policy. Rates seem to go up for the strangest reasons. I've never had a
claim.
When we went to The Bahamas my rate went from $900/yr to $1900/yr.
Not too suprising as I was leaving the Chesapeake area and going offshore
as well. But when we got back, I called to have the extended cruising
rider removed. My new rate was $1700/yr! Time to change companies.
And this was a company I had been with for years with no claims.
Go figure.

Doug
s/v Callista

"Jr Gilbreath" wrote in message
. ..
Does anyone have any leads on good deals in boat insurance. My policy
renewal premium is just about double. Must pay for the hurricanes I
guess.

Thanks Doug
I will surely give them a try. I'm like you, never had a claim!

Doug Dotson wrote:
No doubt. Try NMU (National Marine Underwriters) in Annapolis, MD.
My insurance doubled a couple of years ago and NMU wrote me a nice
policy. Rates seem to go up for the strangest reasons. I've never had a
claim.
When we went to The Bahamas my rate went from $900/yr to $1900/yr.
Not too suprising as I was leaving the Chesapeake area and going offshore
as well. But when we got back, I called to have the extended cruising
rider removed. My new rate was $1700/yr! Time to change companies.
And this was a company I had been with for years with no claims.
Go figure.

Doug
s/v Callista

"Jr Gilbreath" wrote in message
. ..

Does anyone have any leads on good deals in boat insurance. My policy
renewal premium is just about double. Must pay for the hurricanes I
guess.

In article ,
says...


Thanks Doug
I will surely give them a try. I'm like you, never had a claim!

Don't know if you tried Boat US, but I think very highly of them. We had a
fire two weeks after we took our policy with Boat US. They paid for the
repairs without quibble and our premium hardly increased at all.

Last I checked out Boat US their policies were really oriented towards
smaller boats. Not an Agreed Value policy so they depreciated
many repairs. I've heard they recently they have taken steps to
cater to larger boats. That's good, but when my rates went up
2 years ago, their quote was quite a bit higher than NMU. Worth
looking at though.

Doug
s/v Callista

"Gogarty" wrote in message
...
In article ,
says...


Thanks Doug
I will surely give them a try. I'm like you, never had a claim!

Don't know if you tried Boat US, but I think very highly of them. We had a
fire two weeks after we took our policy with Boat US. They paid for the
repairs without quibble and our premium hardly increased at all.

If you have auto, homeowners, or umbrella with Liberty Mutual, they
will insure your boat for about half of what stand alone boat
insurance is. The only drawback I can see is that they won't insure
for operation in Canadian waters. Canadian portion of the Great Lakes
is OK. Next year, when we want to got to Canada which is only a
couple day's sail away, we'll have to change insurance. If you want
to go to the Bahamas, you probably will have the same problem.

--

Roger Long



"Jr Gilbreath" wrote in message
. ..
Does anyone have any leads on good deals in boat insurance. My
policy renewal premium is just about double. Must pay for the
hurricanes I guess.

I've always had "agreed value" with Boat/US. They have several types of
policy - for larger boats, and newer boats, you can get an agreed value,
all risks yacht policy with few, if any, items depreciated. But you can
also get the "Basic" coverage, where everything is depreciated
(sometimes down to zero) and the total loss value is the "market value,"
not replacement.

The are a few variations, such as bass boat and pwc coverage, plus a
high end version that reduces the deductible in some cases. But the
Yacht policy has been available for at least the last 15 years that I
know of.

http://www.boatus.com/insurance/policy.htm

Most of the Boat/US complaints I've seen in this forum are from people
who bought the basic coverage and then discovered that 20 year old
rigging and outboards aren't really covered. Everyone I know who has
the All Risk, Agreed Value Yacht Policy has been quite satisfied. I've
never had a claim, but my cousins, who had their Sabre 38 helicoptered
out of a swamp after Hurricane Bob were ecstatic. So were friends who
were t-boned by a port tack Soling in Boston Harbor, probably from the
same club Roger was talking about the other day. (Maybe it *was* Roger
....)

The t-bone incident had an surprising aspect: because my friends
admitted they didn't see the other boat, they were assessed 24% of the
blame - the port/starboard rule only applies "when in sight" and thus
was somewhat voided because of the lack of a proper lookout. My friends
had to pay 24% of both deductibles, the other boat paid the remainder.




Doug Dotson wrote:
Last I checked out Boat US their policies were really oriented towards
smaller boats. Not an Agreed Value policy so they depreciated
many repairs. I've heard they recently they have taken steps to
cater to larger boats. That's good, but when my rates went up
2 years ago, their quote was quite a bit higher than NMU. Worth
looking at though.

Doug
s/v Callista

"Gogarty" wrote in message
...

In article ,
says...


Thanks Doug
I will surely give them a try. I'm like you, never had a claim!


Don't know if you tried Boat US, but I think very highly of them. We had a
fire two weeks after we took our policy with Boat US. They paid for the
repairs without quibble and our premium hardly increased at all.

I use USAA, cheaper than Boat/US but not everyone qualifies.

Capt. Jeff

"Jeff Morris" wrote in message
...
I've always had "agreed value" with Boat/US. They have several types of
policy - for larger boats, and newer boats, you can get an agreed value,
all risks yacht policy with few, if any, items depreciated. But you can
also get the "Basic" coverage, where everything is depreciated (sometimes
down to zero) and the total loss value is the "market value," not
replacement.

The are a few variations, such as bass boat and pwc coverage, plus a high
end version that reduces the deductible in some cases. But the Yacht
policy has been available for at least the last 15 years that I know of.

Have their rates come down a bit? Just as a reference point, any idea
what $100, 000 would cost these days? Just for grins I'll give them a
call.

http://www.boatus.com/insurance/policy.htm

Most of the Boat/US complaints I've seen in this forum are from people who
bought the basic coverage and then discovered that 20 year old rigging and
outboards aren't really covered. Everyone I know who has the All Risk,
Agreed Value Yacht Policy has been quite satisfied. I've never had a
claim, but my cousins, who had their Sabre 38 helicoptered out of a swamp
after Hurricane Bob were ecstatic. So were friends who were t-boned by a
port tack Soling in Boston Harbor, probably from the same club Roger was
talking about the other day. (Maybe it *was* Roger ...)

The t-bone incident had an surprising aspect: because my friends admitted
they didn't see the other boat, they were assessed 24% of the blame - the
port/starboard rule only applies "when in sight" and thus was somewhat
voided because of the lack of a proper lookout. My friends had to pay 24%
of both deductibles, the other boat paid the remainder.

You've got to wonder where values like 24% come from.



Doug Dotson wrote:
Last I checked out Boat US their policies were really oriented towards
smaller boats. Not an Agreed Value policy so they depreciated
many repairs. I've heard they recently they have taken steps to
cater to larger boats. That's good, but when my rates went up
2 years ago, their quote was quite a bit higher than NMU. Worth
looking at though.

Doug
s/v Callista

"Gogarty" wrote in message
...

In article ,
says...


Thanks Doug
I will surely give them a try. I'm like you, never had a claim!


Don't know if you tried Boat US, but I think very highly of them. We had
a
fire two weeks after we took our policy with Boat US. They paid for the
repairs without quibble and our premium hardly increased at all.

Doug Dotson wrote:
Have their rates come down a bit? Just as a reference point, any idea
what $100, 000 would cost these days? Just for grins I'll give them a
call.


There are too many variables to predict - My new catamaran was somewhat
cheaper that my older boat. Give them a try and find out.

....

The t-bone incident had an surprising aspect: because my friends admitted
they didn't see the other boat, they were assessed 24% of the blame - the
port/starboard rule only applies "when in sight" and thus was somewhat
voided because of the lack of a proper lookout. My friends had to pay 24%
of both deductibles, the other boat paid the remainder.


You've got to wonder where values like 24% come from.

The way we figured it, the port/starboard issue was considered primary,
worth 52%, and the liability bourne completely by the Soling. The
lookout issue was worth 48% and shared by both vessels, who obviously
didn't see each other. I suppose you could argue that maintaining a
proper lookout is more important, but that's not the way the insurance
folks saw it. BTW, this was not a court judgement, its was the "ruling"
by the insurance companies who get together to hash these matters out.

In article ,
says...


If you have auto, homeowners, or umbrella with Liberty Mutual, they
will insure your boat for about half of what stand alone boat
insurance is. The only drawback I can see is that they won't insure
for operation in Canadian waters. Canadian portion of the Great Lakes
is OK. Next year, when we want to got to Canada which is only a
couple day's sail away, we'll have to change insurance. If you want
to go to the Bahamas, you probably will have the same problem.

Don't know about Liberty Mutual, but with our first boat we had Allstate
simply becaused we already had our home insurance through them. But they
didn't know diddly-squat about boats.

On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 21:13:08 -0500, Gogarty
wrote:

Don't know about Liberty Mutual, but with our first boat we had Allstate
simply becaused we already had our home insurance through them. But they
didn't know diddly-squat about boats.

=================================

Ditto for State Farm and I suspect all of the other "non marine"
carriers. It took me months to get a relatively small claim settled
with State Farm many years ago.

"Jeff Morris" wrote in message
...
Doug Dotson wrote:
Have their rates come down a bit? Just as a reference point, any idea
what $100, 000 would cost these days? Just for grins I'll give them a
call.


There are too many variables to predict - My new catamaran was somewhat
cheaper that my older boat. Give them a try and find out.

I did and they came up short, but I'll try again to see if things have
changed.


The t-bone incident had an surprising aspect: because my friends admitted
they didn't see the other boat, they were assessed 24% of the blame - the
port/starboard rule only applies "when in sight" and thus was somewhat
voided because of the lack of a proper lookout. My friends had to pay
24% of both deductibles, the other boat paid the remainder.


You've got to wonder where values like 24% come from.

The way we figured it, the port/starboard issue was considered primary,
worth 52%, and the liability bourne completely by the Soling. The lookout
issue was worth 48% and shared by both vessels, who obviously didn't see
each other. I suppose you could argue that maintaining a proper lookout
is more important, but that's not the way the insurance folks saw it.
BTW, this was not a court judgement, its was the "ruling" by the insurance
companies who get together to hash these matters out.

Where do these percentage figures come from? 52% vs 48%? What is the
margin or error? Or more importantly how would one calculate such
figures?

Doug

I have to agree. I had a friend that tacked on coverage via homeowners
with Allstate. Really cheap. Until he had a claim.

Doug

"Wayne.B" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 21:13:08 -0500, Gogarty
wrote:

Don't know about Liberty Mutual, but with our first boat we had Allstate
simply becaused we already had our home insurance through them. But they
didn't know diddly-squat about boats.

=================================

Ditto for State Farm and I suspect all of the other "non marine"
carriers. It took me months to get a relatively small claim settled
with State Farm many years ago.

Hi Doug
I checked on the national marine underwriter and they were more than
West Marine. Plus if you change insurance it seems you have to get a
new survey (not cheap). Mine will cover out to 75 miles Plus bahamas so
I guess I will just stay with it. thanks for the suggestion.
JR Gilbreath
s/v Savannah Daydreamin

Doug Dotson wrote:
I have to agree. I had a friend that tacked on coverage via homeowners
with Allstate. Really cheap. Until he had a claim.

Doug

"Wayne.B" wrote in message
...

On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 21:13:08 -0500, Gogarty
wrote:


Don't know about Liberty Mutual, but with our first boat we had Allstate
simply becaused we already had our home insurance through them. But they
didn't know diddly-squat about boats.

=================================

Ditto for State Farm and I suspect all of the other "non marine"
carriers. It took me months to get a relatively small claim settled
with State Farm many years ago.

Try Al Golden at IMIS http://www.imiscorp.net/
Independent agent and boater... knows his stuff.

--


Keith
__
Don't argue with an idiot; people watching may not be able to tell the
difference.
"Roger Long" wrote in message
. ..
If you have auto, homeowners, or umbrella with Liberty Mutual, they will
insure your boat for about half of what stand alone boat insurance is.
The only drawback I can see is that they won't insure for operation in
Canadian waters. Canadian portion of the Great Lakes is OK. Next year,
when we want to got to Canada which is only a couple day's sail away,
we'll have to change insurance. If you want to go to the Bahamas, you
probably will have the same problem.

--

Roger Long



"Jr Gilbreath" wrote in message
. ..
Does anyone have any leads on good deals in boat insurance. My policy
renewal premium is just about double. Must pay for the hurricanes I
guess.

I also recommend USAA and have had my boats insured with them for over 25
years.

However, USAA is primarily for US military officers, former officers or
their families. To qualify as a family member is not to difficult. Just
having an immediate family member who is or has been a military officer will
do the trick.

They may have opened up membership to other groups, such as law enforcement.
Wouldn't hurt to check.

When I insured my present boat 3 years ago, the were just placing a $100,000
cap on the yacht policy and anything over that would be assigned to an
underwriter. I was lucky, since they were already in the process of writing
my policy when this went into effect. I think I heard that the cap has now
been lowered to $50,000 now for new policies. Still the rates are still good
even with an underwriter if your referral comes from USAA (so I'm told).

Another nice feature about USAA is you can take your boat anywhere with no
limitation or riders required.

On the negative side, USAA has a 2% deductible on their yacht policy. Kind
of a big "ouch" if your into petty claims, but that is how they keep their
rates so low.

Excellent home and car insurance as well..

Steve
s/v Good Intentions


"Tamaroak" wrote in message
...
I use USAA, cheaper than Boat/US but not everyone qualifies.

Capt. Jeff

We use Allstate and have no problems. They are competitive and pay claims
quickly. Maybe the agent makes a difference.

"Steve" wrote in message
...
I also recommend USAA and have had my boats insured with them for over 25
years.

However, USAA is primarily for US military officers, former officers or
their families. To qualify as a family member is not to difficult. Just
having an immediate family member who is or has been a military officer
will do the trick.

They may have opened up membership to other groups, such as law
enforcement. Wouldn't hurt to check.

When I insured my present boat 3 years ago, the were just placing a
$100,000 cap on the yacht policy and anything over that would be assigned
to an underwriter. I was lucky, since they were already in the process of
writing my policy when this went into effect. I think I heard that the cap
has now been lowered to $50,000 now for new policies. Still the rates are
still good even with an underwriter if your referral comes from USAA (so
I'm told).

Another nice feature about USAA is you can take your boat anywhere with no
limitation or riders required.

On the negative side, USAA has a 2% deductible on their yacht policy. Kind
of a big "ouch" if your into petty claims, but that is how they keep their
rates so low.

Excellent home and car insurance as well..

Steve
s/v Good Intentions


"Tamaroak" wrote in message
...
I use USAA, cheaper than Boat/US but not everyone qualifies.

Capt. Jeff

Dave wrote:
On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 18:18:08 -0500, Jeff Morris
said:


The t-bone incident had an surprising aspect: because my friends
admitted they didn't see the other boat, they were assessed 24% of the
blame - the port/starboard rule only applies "when in sight" and thus
was somewhat voided because of the lack of a proper lookout.


That has to be the worst reasoning I've heard of in years. Sounds like a
good reason not to use BoatUS.

So what's wrong? Are you claiming that that the port-tacker was 100%
at fault? Or are you questioning the actual distribution? I can only
guess at the logic behind it, but clearly "We weren't looking to port
because we have right of way over those boats" isn't a good excuse.

Remember that Boat/US paid a considerable amount to repair the starboard
tacker - new roller furling (not cheap on a 41 footer) plus a serious
hole in the bow repaired. All of the work was approved immediately -
IIRC within a few days after the accident they were saying, "do the work
and send us the bill."

So the liability issue only had to do with the deductibles. According
to the settlement, my friends were responsible for 24% of both, or a few
hundred dollars. Not too bad, considering the situation.

I've heard that representatives of the various insurance companies get
together to determine how to divide up the various liabilities. I
assume this 24% number comes down from that.

Plus, even if they didn't see the other vessel, up to a point they
were probably proceeding exactly as a right of way vessel should in a
crossing situation. The right of way vessel has to maintain a
straight and predictable course so that they can be avoided. If it
becomes clear that there will be a collision, the right of way vessel
must take action to avoid it but doing that too soon can create a
hazard or collision out of a simple crossing if the burdened vessel
can't figure out the intent and predict the course.

If your friends were altering course as the right of way vessel and
not keeping a lookout, then they would be more than 24% wrong in my
book.

--

Roger Long

You can add my recommendation for Boat/US to the list. We were insured by
them for many years and were happy. When it came time to go cruising,
though, Boat/US wouldn't cover us past 200 miles offshore. We ended up
getting a Lloyds policy through Blue Water Insurance (they advertise in
Latitude 38 if you're on the West Coast). We were very happy with the
policy and service we got with them.

Another option is Fireman's insurance, a friend covered his 36' boat with
them and was happy, and last but not least, you can also call your
automobile insurance company. We're insured with USAA, and at times got
boat insurance with them as well. USAA is -the- best insurance company I've
ever dealt with, but they only service military, ex-military and their
famillies.

Hope this helps,

Paul

Dave wrote:
On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 11:25:42 -0500, Jeff Morris
said:


The t-bone incident had an surprising aspect: because my friends
admitted they didn't see the other boat, they were assessed 24% of the
blame - the port/starboard rule only applies "when in sight" and thus
was somewhat voided because of the lack of a proper lookout.


That has to be the worst reasoning I've heard of in years. Sounds like a
good reason not to use BoatUS.


So what's wrong?


Nothing wrong with the first part of the statement. The problem is with the
second part. Vessels are "in sight" of one another when one "can be
observed" from the other, not when one _is_ observed by the other. See Rule
3(j). If one didn't see the other because the first wasn't keeping a proper
lookout, it was nevertheless "in sight" because if a proper lookout had been
kept it _could_ have observed the second. The consequence of failing to
observe the port/starboard rule should be totally unaffected by whether a
proper lookout was being kept.

As usual, you're confusing a little bit of knowledge for wisdom. Of
course the rules are not abrogated because of the lack of a lookout.
I'm not claiming that the rules somehow changed because of the lack of a
lookout. The issue here is assessing blame. I simply passed on one
such judgment and a snippet of the logic, passed down third hand.
Unlike the racing rules, in these cases the total blame equals 100%,
thus the relative blame has to be assessed comparing the various
violations. Although I can't say that all courts would make the same
judgment, it is clear that if the "privileged" vessel did not maintain a
lookout, and that contributed to a collision, then that vessel is
assessed part of the blame.

In racing, you are correct: the consequence of being in the wrong in a
port/starboard case is a DSQ (or circles), the other boat may also
suffer a DSQ for not attempting to prevent the collision. In a sense,
200% blame can therefore be assessed.

Roger Long wrote:
Plus, even if they didn't see the other vessel, up to a point they
were probably proceeding exactly as a right of way vessel should in a
crossing situation. The right of way vessel has to maintain a
straight and predictable course so that they can be avoided. If it
becomes clear that there will be a collision, the right of way vessel
must take action to avoid it but doing that too soon can create a
hazard or collision out of a simple crossing if the burdened vessel
can't figure out the intent and predict the course.

If your friends were altering course as the right of way vessel and
not keeping a lookout, then they would be more than 24% wrong in my
book.

They weren't altering course - they had been holding a steady course for
a long time. If anything, I suspect the Soling maneuvered close to
them. They saw the Soling about a boat length away and started to turn
but it was to late. In their defense, this was one of their first
sails in a new (to them) center cockpit boat that has much less
visibility to leeward then the boat they were used to. With this
incident in mind, when I had a jib made for my boat I had the foot cut
high, sacrificing a bit of speed for visibility. BTW, this is the only
such incident my friends have had in 25 years of full time cruising.

Dave wrote:
On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 22:29:10 -0500, Jeff Morris
said:


As usual, you're confusing a little bit of knowledge for wisdom. Of
course the rules are not abrogated because of the lack of a lookout.
I'm not claiming that the rules somehow changed because of the lack of a
lookout.


Ok, so what did you mean by


the port/starboard rule only applies "when in sight" and thus

was somewhat voided because of the lack of a proper lookout.


This is looking retrospectively, for the purpose of assessing financial
responsibility. It would be easy for someone to say "But I was on
starboard tack - its entirely his fault!" But being the stand-on vessel
has responsibilities, and one of them is maintaining a proper lookout.

In the traditional terms, the stand-on vessel is "privileged," but when
it comes times to assess liability, some of that privilege is lost if
you don't follow all of the rules.



Are you now distinguishing between "voided" and "abrogated?" Saying the
port/starboard rule was not somewhat "abrogated" (first quoted paragraph
above) but not somewhat "voided" (second quoted paragraph)?

I'm not a lawyer so I have no responsibility to use these terms in their
proper legal sense, if that's what you mean. Just like you, as a
lawyer, are not required to be truthful or honest as most ordinary
people understand those terms.

Dave wrote:
When I'm acting as a lawyer, I'm obliged to advocate my client's case with
zeal. And in that case you're right that I might be obligated to tell his
story in its most favorable light, and limit what I say if it might damage
his position.

One of the most startling aspects of serving on a jury was listening to
lawyers, presumably honest men in real life, tell obvious lies, over and
over, hoping that by repetition some of us might start to believe them.
And indeed, during deliberation we had to keep telling certain jurors
that what they remembered as testimony was actually the lawyer's
unsubstantiated claims. I know we're all entitled to the best defense,
but if we could have, we would have found the lawyers guilty!