Boatowners Coverage

The insurance approach for covering boats and boating property is quite like what is used to protect cars and homes. Essentially insurance is offered on a package basis, meaning that there is coverage for physical property as well as protection against the legal and financial consequences of injuring others or damaging property that belongs to others.

Property Coverage - Typically a boatowners policy covers:

• Boats - Refers to property designed to travel on water and includes sails, its permanent equipment, spars and fittings.
• Boating Equipment - Includes a wide variety of property that is used in conjunction with boats and it includes accessories. Items considered as equipment are property used for communication (radios), navigation, sonar, radar, outboard motors, dinghies, skis and sports equipment (recreational flotation devices) that are towed by boats and similar property. As a rule of thumb, the more related an item is to the ownership and use of a boat, the greater the justification to classify it as boating equipment.
• Boat Trailers - Trailers used (and designed) for transporting boats (as defined by the policy).

This property must be owned by the person who is named as the policyholder. There are limited instances when such property that is temporarily in the policyholder’s possession also qualifies for coverage.

Items and situations that aren’t covered include boating property that is used in business activity, losses that involve races or competitions (an exception is made for sailboats) and boats that are used, full-time, as residences.

Liability Coverage - Besides protecting boating property, a boatowners policy also responds to claims or lawsuits caused when another person is injured, and /or when another person’s property is damaged or destroyed. An example would be a collision where the owner of a large speedboat collides with a person on a jet ski, seriously injuring the rider and demolishing the jet ski. The policy would handle both portions of such a loss. The liability portion would also provide a legal defense against lawsuits.

Another important coverage under the liability section is medical payments. This provides reimbursement for, typically, emergency or immediate medical treatment expense. Consider a person who slips on a boat deck and needs transportation to an emergency for treatment of a broken bone or concussion. Such costs would qualify under medical payments.

As is the case with property coverage, there are liability situations that are NOT covered by a boatowners policy, including losses that involve business activity, transmission of communicable disease, unauthorized operation of boating property, intentional acts, and criminal activity.

Boating property is a substantial investment and boatowners coverage is an efficient, affordable way to guard against accidental losses.

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Dead In The Water

One issue that may not occur to boaters until it happens is a stalled boat. When a larger boat loses power, it usually has to be located and towed back to harbor/shore. Tows are typically quite expensive. Towing charges are usually based upon the time the towing firm takes to depart from port, reach the boat needing assistance, and returning to port (portal to portal). Charges may reach hundreds of dollars per hour. Further, if your boat is grounded, additional charges apply.

While some equipment breakdowns are unavoidable, most calls for towing are due to events that are quite controllable, such as dead batteries and empty fuel tanks. As a precaution, boaters should keep their tanks full, besides avoiding running out of fuel; fuller tanks also avoid water condensation build-up that can cause fuel line blockage and motor failure. Stalling problems can be minimized or prevented by use of following tips:

• Use one (marine starter) battery for starting outboard motors and another for running onboard electronics
• Use a set of bilge pumps rather than a single pump which may be inefficient and overwhelmed
• Do not use items such as small appliances (particularly refrigerators) that can quickly drain batteries
• Avoid continuous use of non-essential boat powered electronics – portable devices with their own power is a smarter move
• Check batteries to assure that they are maintaining peak power, replace batteries when necessary

When a problem does occur, rather than depend on cell phones, it is more useful to have a boat equipped with a marine radio (which rescue services can track to aid in vessel location) or a GPS unit (which gives precise boat location). A cell phone may run out of power or, even when available, may delay rescue if the user cannot provide accurate location information.

You can keep the use of boats safe and fun by taking steps necessary to reduce the chances of being dead in the water.

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