Yes. Here's what came out of the owner's forum:

It is a problem. Many of the major insurors adopted underwriting
guidelines recently, claiming they have done this to limit exposure,
presumably as a response to major hurricane losses. I wrote quite a
lot of sailboat coverage, including my own Endeavour 32, thru Safeco,
and they adopted guidelines that do not permit binding coverage on
boats over 26' in length, older boats, or wooden boats.
Unfortunately, other companies have also followed suite and finding
reasonably priced coverage has become more difficult. I am just now
getting into trying to identify companies that will write this type
coverage myself

--

Roger Long

Roger ,,, you have nothing to worry about. The USA Government will take
care of you. Pres Bush, the Senate, the Congress, the New Jersey State
Legislature ... you are covered.

Why? Because you are the front man on license fees. With all the money the
corrupt government is going to collect from the sheep like you, the kickback
to the insurance industry shouldn't cut into the till at all.

There will be plenty of money for everyone!

GEICO ,,, the little green lizard will say "thank you Roger" on tv.

============
"Roger Long" wrote in message
...
There's been some discussion recently about what insurance has done to
aviation. It could come to boating someday.

There was just a post on the owner's forum for my boat that someone is
having trouble getting insurance in the Gulf and Florida region for a boat
more than five years old. Has anyone heard anything similar? Any chance
this is the first high cirrus clouds of approaching bad weather?

--

Roger Long

Roger Long wrote:
There's been some discussion recently about what insurance has done to
aviation. It could come to boating someday.

There was just a post on the owner's forum for my boat that someone is
having trouble getting insurance in the Gulf and Florida region for a
boat more than five years old. Has anyone heard anything similar?
Any chance this is the first high cirrus clouds of approaching bad
weather?

--

Roger Long

Hi Roger:

Gtood question!
Instead of turning this into a useless polital thread with 189 post
I'll try this:

Boat: 39.3', 1979, solid glass hull
Insured Valued: $69,000
Enviornmetal clean up $500,000
Liability: $500,000
Medical: $25,000 per incident
Area of operation: PNW, Out about 100 miles.
Premium/year: $304






Company................ Allstate

Please list your rates. Maybe we can do somthing or at least be better
informed.
Bob

Hi Roger,

Having been a pilot since the mid-1970's, I watched the
insurance debacle in aviation unfold. I expect that you did
also.

IIRC, the problem was not with the insurance companies per
se, but with the change in juries attitudes toward aviation
accidents. Juries became much more willing to blame the
manufacturers and to "send a message" by assessing punitive
damages against pilots estates, repair facilities, component
manufacturers, and the airplane manufacturers. All of the
small plane manufacturers that I know of with the exception
of Beechcraft were either driven into bankruptcy, or stopped
producing small airplanes.
The insurance companies responded to the dramatically
increased jury awards by raising the insurance premiums for
pilots, maintenance facilities, and manufacturers. At one
point, the product liability insurance on Cessna light
planes was higher than the manufacturing cost of the
airplane!! The cost of new airplanes more than doubled in a
couple of years because the manufacturers had to add the new
product liability insurance costs to the sales price. Now
we have new airplanes that cost more than most peoples
houses, and very few insurance companies to choose from.
The few aviation insurance underwriters that are out there
often refuse outright to insure pilots until they meet the
minimum experience criterion set up by the underwriter.

This relates to boating because Florida and the Gulf coast
have been hammered pretty regularly the last couple of
years, and the predictions are that this will continue for
some time. I'm under the impression that most insurance
companies do not "self insure", but hedge their risks by
buying larger polices from groups such as Lloyds, etc. When
the underwriters payouts become too much for what they are
charging, the cost of insurance is going to go up. If the
perceived risk becomes unacceptable, the underwriters are
going to drop out of the market altogether, and insurance
will be unobtainable at any price. Of course that is not a
problem if you own your boat outright, and are willing to
lose it if things go badly. ;-) It is only the bankers who
force people to buy insurance, and only then to make sure
that they don't lose their collateral.

I don't expect boat insurance will be difficult to obtain or
particularly expensive _unless_ you live in an area that is
at risk from the more active Atlantic hurricane seasons.
(Check out all the salvage boats on EBAY that were sunk by
Katrina).

Regards,

Don W.


Roger Long wrote:
There's been some discussion recently about what insurance has done to
aviation. It could come to boating someday.

There was just a post on the owner's forum for my boat that someone is
having trouble getting insurance in the Gulf and Florida region for a
boat more than five years old. Has anyone heard anything similar?
Any chance this is the first high cirrus clouds of approaching bad
weather?

we've been trying to insure our boat for liability only and can not get
it without an out of water survey. It seems people with recked boats
from the canes are geting liability insurance and then letting calling
their boat in as a reck to get the insurance to clean it up. FL charges
the reg owner big bucks if you leave a boat sitting after it is recked.

Da Kine wrote:
we've been trying to insure our boat for liability only and can not get
it without an out of water survey. It seems people with recked boats
from the canes are geting liability insurance and then letting calling
their boat in as a reck to get the insurance to clean it up. FL charges
the reg owner big bucks if you leave a boat sitting after it is recked.

THANK YOU Da KINE

AT LAST........... SOMTHING ABOUT INSURANCE!

So far we have Allstate as a real bargin. About $300-340 for reasonable
coverage for boats 27'-39'

Any other owners out there who have insurance recomendations?
Bob

In article . com,
says...



Da Kine wrote:
we've been trying to insure our boat for liability only and can not get
it without an out of water survey. It seems people with recked boats
from the canes are geting liability insurance and then letting calling
their boat in as a reck to get the insurance to clean it up. FL charges
the reg owner big bucks if you leave a boat sitting after it is recked.

THANK YOU Da KINE

AT LAST........... SOMTHING ABOUT INSURANCE!

So far we have Allstate as a real bargin. About $300-340 for reasonable
coverage for boats 27'-39'

Any other owners out there who have insurance recomendations?

Boat US. Had Allstate once because they carried our home insurance. But I
got the impression they knew from nothing about marine. Looked into
swithcing to Geico, which carries our car insurance. But they know from
nothing about sailboats and could not touch our Boat US premium by several
hundred dollars. Their service has been excellent. We had a major casualty
(fire) two weeks after we bought the policy and they paid with never a
quibble. Our premium increased only 10% and that for only two years when
it fell back to the no claims level.

By the way, it has been a pleasure to follow this somewhat off-topic
thread without having to wade through torrents of invective, vulgarity,
insults, scatology, homophobia and just plain bad manners. Try
alt.politics for fulsome displays of all the above.

Gogarty wrote:
By the way, it has been a pleasure to follow this somewhat off-topic
thread without having to wade through torrents of invective, vulgarity,
insults, scatology, homophobia and just plain bad manners.
snip..




...and that's just Fred's contribution.....