Watercraft

You have a boat or are looking into buying a boat. You know you will need some kind of insurance for your boat, but how do you go about finding the best rates? Does your regular insurance guy handle boat insurance too? If so, is it really the best deal or are there companies that specialize in boat insurance that can offer better coverage at better rates? Boat insurance is very similar to auto insurance as the premiums vary depending on the type of boat (speed boat - high premium; pontoon boat - low premium), how old the boat is, any additional equipment or modifications, where the boat is docked and how it will be driven, how long will it be in the water and how long it will be in storage. 

Other variables that will determine whether you can get cheap boat insurance quotes are how much liability insurance you want to carry, whether you want full replacement coverage or actual cash value coverage, medical payments, and towing and mechanical assistance. Another variable is if you do not own your boat outright and have financed it the finance company will require you to carry a certain level of coverage for the loan and it will not matter if you get cheap boat insurance quotes. 

To make sure you can get cheap boat insurance quotes you will need to check on the internet and must have already determined what type of coverage you want to carry and what you want to leave out. Then you can take quotes from several companies and compare them to get the cheapest boat insurance quote. When looking at any of the quotes you also have to look at the financial stability of the insurance company you are choosing. It will not matter much if you have the cheapest boat insurance if when it comes time to make a claim that your insurance company is out of business or is in bankruptcy and can not or will not pay your claim when you need it most. 

When thinking of boat insurance most people are looking at coverage in case of a total loss of the boat. Most people do not consider the partial loss factor. There are times where you may have an incident that only causes damage or loss to a part of your boat. How your insurance company pays for a partial loss is important in what kind of policy you end up getting. Most companies pay for partial losses until a boat reaches a certain age. Each company will also use a different depreciation schedule for paying claims. For example one company may offer 7% depreciation on mechanical equipment and 15% depreciation on canvas (for sail boats). 

Also some companies name specific parts that are considered subject to depreciation like canvas, plastic, sails, etc. Items like stern drives, outboard motors and other internal equipment are usually replacement value items until they reach a certain age. If they are not specifically named in a policy they will usually be replaced less your deductible.

Many people believe that the best move is to stick to one insurance company that provides you with all your insurance needs. It may be true to some cases but this is not a general rule, especially if it's boat insurance you need.

If that is your situation, then the practical move for you is to get the best boat insurance rates that you can get your hands on.

In order for you to have a better idea on the rates that are available for you out there, you need to conduct some research. You need to exert time and effort for you to be in the know.

With you knowing this information, you can easily make a sound decision on which insurance plan is right for your lifestyle and is within your budget.

There are predatory insurance agents who will overwhelm your brain with so many boat insurance rates. If you are not good with numbers, this can be too confusing. Sometimes these predatory insurance agents are also scammers.

But not to disappoint you, there are still some insurance agents who provide you with real boat insurance rates. You just have to know where to look.

That is why we advice you to know as much as you can. Not a lot of insurance agents can pull their trick up their sleeves if you know what it is to know about boat insurance rates.

In fact, you can also get from them the lowest rates possible. This is what education can do for you. It protects you from the scammers.

If you want to be sure with the plan, you can research on the insurance provider. Read the reviews that are written about them. Read the testimonials from their clients.

You can compare the boat insurance rates from the other insurance providers because of the online insurance quotes that are also made available for you.

There are some sites that even include the policies of your boat insurance, thus giving you an idea of the coverage.

If the insurance plan allows you to contact the insurance company then this is a good sign that they are very credible.

If the insurance agents are knowledgeable and can easily answer your questions then you know that the boat insurance rates you read in this plan are accurate and are not scams.

Check whether the insurance they can provide you is within your budget and can comply with your lifestyle. If you answer yes to both question, make the most out of this opportunity and sign up.

The marine insurance survey is the most common and most complete inspection conducted by a surveyor. Designed specifically to meet the demands of the insurance companies and lending institutions, it needs to evaluate and assess the financial risk implicated in insuring or financing the boat. The objective of this inspection is to give details on the boat's condition and value when the survey was conducted. Basically, the marine insurance survey will only involve detailed visual assessment of the boat, except when the insurer or lien-holder necessitates an operational testing or sea trial. It shall examine the safety and se-worthiness of your vessel, on the basis of the present condition of its systems, equipment and structure alongside the assessment of the boat's fair market value. A marine insurance survey will usually be a pre-requisite prior to provision of coverage. A survey similar to that will also be required every five years as a must for renewal of coverage. When it comes to the point that an accident, vandalism or theft occurs, a damage survey shall be conducted to evaluate the extent and cost of damage to the vessel.

One factor to consider in choosing a good surveyor to obtain a good marine insurance survey is the background like for instance the membership of an accrediting organization offering designations signifying that a member has met strict technical, professional and ethical standards. With these at hand, you will have knowledge that the person you are considering is a credible professional. Select a marine insurance surveyor specializing in offering surveys for your specific type of vessel. A surveyor for a Yacht or any small craft for instance, specializes in surveying small vessels with a length of up to 300 feet. Once your surveyor met this standard, the next step is to ask if he/she can provide validation of expertise, work experience and qualifications. You can review and verify the resume with the references from previous clients readily available upon request. A marine survey business may have existing employees or many associates so be sure to choose the surveyor, not the company only. Choose someone whose credentials are on the letterhead or advertisement. You should also evaluate a sample of report from a survey conducted on a similar boat and see to it that it is professionally done.

It is crucial to request this as it is indeed significant to know if your surveyor provides you with a report on your boat without lacking detail and clarity. Be cautious that the marine insurance surveyor can black-out any personal information of the client or specific details of the boat. Also, try to find out if your surveyor has any existing professional liability insurance like the one called Errors and Omissions insurance. It may be limited though, to seek remedy beyond the marine survey company's assets once negligence should come up. Also take note that if your marine survey is for insurance purposes, bear in mind that the insurer will typically reject if once the survey is conducted by a surveyor who is directly associated with a marine or boatyard due to the possibility of conflict of interest.

Are you a current boat owner or are you looking at making an investment in a boat for personal or business use? If you are a current boat owner and you insure your boat with a regular insurance company like GEICO, Progressive or Allstate you may want to consider a company that specializes in boats or watercraft to get the best deal on boat insurance quotes. Conversely many regular insurance companies offer significant discounts if you have multiple policies with them. Everyone knows that the major insurance companies offer a discount if you have multiple vehicles on your auto insurance and an additional discount if you also insure your home with them, but it is a little known fact that you can get and additional discount by insuring your boat as well. 

The only problem with this is that depending on the insurance company you may be able to get a better overall price by buying separate policies for your car, home and boat. Progressive has built an entire ad campaign about how easy it is to get your car, motorcycle or home insured and that they will even give you the premium for the same coverage for up to three competitors and have recently added boats and personal water craft to their commercial base. 

Allstate has accident forgiveness that they are advertising heavily on the radio and television. All of their ads only speak of the provision in relation to cars and do not mention boats, but it is a great feature especially if you will have new drivers on your policy whether it will be for your car OR boat. Your best bet for online insurance quotes are the regular insurance web sites like esurance.com, insureweb.com and others.

They all have options to enter boat in for the type of insurance you are looking for and will then be able to compare premiums from the various major insurance companies. Once you have some of those in hand you should try several boat specialty insurance companies and get their rates as well. 

The best specialty boat insurers are Boat US, United Marine Underwriters and NBOA (National Boat Owner's Association). NBOA offers a membership that includes towing, discounts from their Boat Equipment Store and industry leading advice from many marine experts and a discount over and above the excellent premiums they offer from many marine insurance companies. They offer the following kinds of insurance - Sea Ray Boat insurance, power boat insurance, sail boat insurance, personal water craft insurance, house boat insurance, race boat insurance, ski boat insurance, jet ski insurance, catamaran insurance, fishing boat insurance and more. 

Their main competition is Boat US which also offers a towing service and authorized service from marine dealers around the country. My father in law bought the Boat US membership that cost him $300 for a year and within a month of owning his used boat had to be towed in from the bay and the bill would have been over $600 so he paid for his membership for two years with the one tow.

Although there is no official standard such as ISO within the yacht insurance industry to guarantee complete consistency across carriers, most policies have developed many common denominators.

Hull, protection and indemnity, medical payments, personal effects, uninsured boater's liability, towing and emergency assistance and even pollution coverage have all become accepted as essential elements within a policy. 

However, as we know the devil hides in the detail and the subtle nuances between seemingly similar policies can lead to very costly uncovered loss, in turn resulting in an expensive claim on your own professional indemnity cover.

Environmental damage, Ice and freezing, mechanical break down, and defense costs are some of the key areas that if cover is not adequate can lurk beneath the surface of a policy waiting to cause such exposure if attention to detail is overlooked.

We live in an age of increase environmental awareness and as such the laws designed to protect our beautiful planet are now rigorously purposeful in their intent to hold boat owners accountable for their actions. If you are the owner of luxury sports/fishing yacht in Queensland for example, a minor accident running aground into one of the local reefs could leave a bill that would leave Richard Branson feeling slightly worried.

Environmental damage is generally addressed by carriers in three different ways.

Firstly, total exclusion for the damage to the marine environment, secondly with a stated sub-limit ranging from $60,000 to $150,000 and finally a policy which is 'silent' to the coverage. Obviously the latter is the most generous as it doesn't exclude or sub limit environmental damage, however if the insured yacht is based somewhere such as the more robust shores of England, it can be an unnecessary premium.

Possibly the most frequently argued claim in a carrier's yacht portfolio is almost certainly mechanical breakdown. Although coverage for mechanical breakdown is by no means uncommon how it is adjusted varies widely. There is a thin line between wear and tear and the unforeseen mechanical breakdown. The latter being often being covered and the former more than likely not.

It is essential to establish the variables within the policy such as is the cover adjusted on the basis of its actual cash value or a replacement cost? Also does the valuation change when the boat reaches a certain age and if so, when? Often a policy will begin as replacement cost and then convert to ACV as the boat reaches an age such as 10 years old.

To overlook the threat of ice and freezing as non-critical is all too easy unless you are based in an area where it is common fact of life. This outlook can be compared to the homeowner who doesn't' buy flood coverage because he doesn't live on the water and therefore doesn't see the threat. Too often this nonchalance can come back to haunt us. More often than not Ice and freezing is excluded but there are policies which have no such exclusions or give back coverage based on the berthing standards of the vessel which provide underwriters with more opportunities to control exposure. In this instance some policies may not exclude ice and freezing but rather exclude damage resulting from improper winterization.

Finally it is vital to understand the critical difference between a policy that has defense cost in addition to the limit of liability and a policy where the defense costs are included within the limit of liability, thereby diminishing the limit available for settlement by the cost of the defense. With their still being a lack of standard here make sure you check each policy wording carefully. If the owner runs out of limit often the only feasible step is to make up the difference with your PI cover - and this is not good. 

Obviously it is important to know all of the coverage differences from policy to policy but each of the above occur in real life scenarios and the difference in one policy over another can have dramatic effect upon the amount of loss covered by any particular carrier.

With the yachting sector having seen many top insurers merge, sell on their portfolios or even leave the business altogether across the last five years, now more than ever an examination of policy and what lies beneath the surface can prove to be a invaluable endeavor when placing business.

In some ways, boats are like people, too. They have names, they are special, they can vanish, and most of all, they are an asset because they have value. And because they have value, be it price value or a sentimental value, we are more likely to get an appropriate insurance for them. Not only are your concerns limited to the value of the boat, you are also all the more concerned about the people and the lives that are involved on it. When you are just new to the boating scene, you are more likely to get lost in your search for a good boat insurance quote.

To start with, if there's anything that will send you to confusion when it comes to getting the right insurance for your boat, it will be because there are many insurance coverage and policies to choose from. They are offered by different companies who will each claim that they offer the best among the rest. Which insurance company will give the right quote for you? Every company seems to claim to be number one. Sometimes, it takes a good amount of background investigation and research before you can get settled with a good coverage and arriving at the best boat insurance quote that will make you look forward to sailing.

How do you get a good boat insurance quote from an insurance company? Or should the question be, how do you pick the right insurance company? First of all, the insurance company should be one who has been in the insurance business even years before you started sailing. An insurance company should have an untarnished reputation of being able to comply with their insurance obligations should the boat insurer make his or her claim. In short, you need to check on the credibility of the insurance company.

Before you decide to get insurance for your boat, try any and all other means possible to make a good comparison about the different insurance quotes that are being offered. In fact, you can easily ask for reasonable quotes on the web. Yes, insurance companies are now selling policies online and they usually offer to get you a good quote without the obligation of getting yourself signed up for a policy if you don't really want to.

So, how do you make sure you are not getting garbage for your boat insurance quote? You can start by knowing how much your boat is worth to you based on the age of the boat and the boat accessories that come along with it. You would also want to find out how much you are willing to pay for your insurance premium. It is also entirely up to you if you want to make your insurance coverage as wider as possible. So, get quoted now from different insurance companies, weigh things up, pick the right one, and sail on.

In case an accident should take place while riding a sit-down or stand-up jet ski (also referred to as a Waverunner or personal watercraft), it is always a wise more to have adequate insurance protection in place for all potential incidents.

Jet ski insurance is not merely a basic plan to cover the costs for repairs and damage after a accident, but of more importance to ensure ample protection is there in case of bodily injury to riders or third parties, in which case coverage for medical expenses is a necessity.

To arrange a full risks insurance plan for a personal watercraft it often helps to locate a marine insurer that specializes in boats in general or those completely dedicated to high-speed watercraft, such as jet skis.

Common benefits to a typical personal watercraft insurance plan include - fire, theft, vandalism, and accidental damage protection - uninsured or underinsured liability - medical expenses - a liability extension to tow water skis, wakeboards, kneeboard, or towable tubes.

Small sized powerboats and PWC often attract a high premium rate due to a larger number of accidents often coming down to those boaters owning a jet boat, water ski boat or personal watercraft. Reports indicate some of the common reasons for injury or accident whilst riding a jet ski include a reckless driver, insufficient or limited handling experience, or just a complete lack of attention to a riders surroundings.

Taking out a PWC insurance plan is not a requirement in all states (search a local states.gov website for full information); even though it is a benefit to ensure sufficient coverage is arranged should an accident take place in the future.