How does one know how reliable insurance underwriters are? We're
offshore cruisers, so we need international coverage on our boat. Our
current policy costs more than 4% of the agreed value of our boat, but
it's from Pantaenius, which we believe to be reliable. We looked
around for a more reasonable quote and got one from Yachtlink -- just
over 2% of agreed value. Trouble is, the underwriters appear to be a
Russian company called Sogaz. This isn't very reassuring, and it's
not clear to us how we would ever hold them to honor a claim. Does
the fact that the broker is in California help us, legally? Is there
any way to determine whether specific underwriters honor their
obligations?