It's not looking too good for getting to Nova Scotia this year.

I got forced out of aviation by the constantly tightening noose of insurance
and I can see the early signs of the same processes at work when talking to
agents about the necessary insurance. The hurricane losses and the
propensity for people doing boneheaded things in expensive boats have got
the underwriters turning the screws.

There's no question that I can get the insurance but another survey and
significantly higher premiums put the cost up to where it seems pretty steep
for a week or two of cruising. I'd hoped to spend most of the summer along
the Nova Scotia coast but it now looks as though I'll have too much going on
with work to do that. Canada will have to wait until next year when I can
justify the insurance cost with a couple months of use.

It's not a huge disappointment though. I wanted to go east since I've seen
most of New England over the years. However, I have a new cruising partner
who has not and showing her Maine more thoroughly and leisurely (after all,
you could spend a lifetime on this coast) with some trips down to the Cape
to swim in warm water and visit old haunts will be pretty nice.

I contacted insurance agents suggested in response to a posting here as well
as some others. It was pretty discouraging to have a couple of them tell me
not to give up my current insurance if at all possible because I might find
it impossible to get insurance soon on a 1980 boat. The underwriters are
evidently using age as a primary criteria for squeezing down their total
insurance exposure to a level they are comfortable with. It seems crazy
because my boat is a lot more solid than most of the brand new ones I see.
It may be just economics. It costs them the same to service and administer
the policy for my $25,000 boat as one of the new quarter million dollar
daysailers that probably get used twice a season. At ten times the premium
and less usage exposure, it makes sense for them. From what I'm hearing, it's
going to be very hard to get insurance for 1980 vintage cruising boats in a
few years.

Other things I learned.

You do not want to have two policies covering the same area. If you do have
a claim, you have an excellent chance of winding up with nothing because the
two companies will point fingers at each other forever. Some policies will
even let them deny a claim if you have other insurance that you have not
disclosed to them. So, keeping my current inexpensive insurance that lets
me sail as late in the year as I want and buying another policy for Canada
is not an option.

The one Canadian company I spoke to said they could not insure a US
registerd yacht unless it is in Canada permanently. This was after
questioning their underwriters so would probably apply to all companies up
there.

--
Roger Long