If you haven’t experienced any trouble with your boat, boat insurance can seem like an unnecessary expense. However, much like flood insurance or auto insurance, you never know how much you need it until you actually need it.
Half of all boating accidents involve personal watercraft. If you are involved in a boating accident, you are a little less stressed if you have boat insurance.
Boat insurance helps protect you against loss. However, if you do not have the necessary boat insurance information, you could end up losing your money into the sea if you choose the wrong policy.
It comes with multiple options of optional policy add-ons, varying payout requirements, and different premium rates. These could easily add up if you are not attentive.
The competition in the boating insurance game is stiff, and this could make it challenging to select the best cover. You, therefore, need to understand all the moving parts of an insurance policy and then look into what is your best option.
All the Boat Insurance Information You Need
Making a decision that involves your money requires research. You need to know a lot about the investment to protect your money. Below is some information that will help make the decision on boat insurance less challenging.
Main Components of Boat Insurance
To purchase boat insurance, you need to know how you’re investing your money. It could protect your finances in case your boat is damaged. It could also protect you against any damage you cause other parties.
Here is more on the components of boat insurance.
Bodily Injury Liability
You could hurt someone while you are out of the sea. This component protects you from having to pay the other boater out of your own pocket. This policy will pay the other boater’s medical bills. However, the policy has a cap on the amount of money it can pay out.
Property Damage Liability
This policy will pay for any damages you may cause to another property. While this should primarily include other boats, it also covers various other properties. These include docks, ramps and any other form of property you damage as you are sailing on your boat.
Physical Damage
This coverage is more personal. It covers any damage you cause to your own boat or trailer. This particular coverage pays for boating accidents that occur whether you are on the sea or on the land.
Beyond your core boat insurance policy, you have the option of purchasing additional collision and comprehensive plan. The comprehensive plan will cover damages to your boat from vandalism, theft, or extreme weather.
In case you have your boat at the marina and it is stolen, the comprehensive cover has got you covered. Collision, on the other hand, will pay for any repair or replacement costs you incur if you are at fault for an accident.
Policy Add-Ons
Policy add-ons are other optional services to choose from when you are about to purchase boat insurance. Note that while they could be important, choosing to get them is entirely up to you. For every policy add on you choose to get, your premiums will go higher.
The uninsured body injury policy with cover your medical bills, lost wages, and any pain and suffering. The policy can also cover any gaps that arise between the uninsured boater’s liability limits and your damages.
Personal effects replacement is a policy add-on that will cover your costs of personal belongings lost in case of a boating accident.
In case you did not know that you could insure your valuables, and they were stolen, you do not need to panic if you had this policy. These could include items like rings, cameras, phones, laptops, and clothes. However, they do not include personal watercraft.
On water towing labor is an add-on that will save you some stress if you are every broken down and trapped mid-sail. This policy ensures that in case of a breakdown, you have one less thing to think about.
How Do You Choose the Best Boat Insurance?
Now that you know the components of boat insurance, it’s time for the next step. You need to choose the best insurance. Here are some of the considerations you should make when choosing the best boat insurance.
Financial Stability
As you make your premiums promptly, you depend on the peace of mind that in case you ever need, your insurer will deliver. Your insurance company is only as good as their ability to pay your claims. Ensure you conduct some research so that you don’t just choose the insurer with the biggest advertisement budget, but the one with the financial stability to afford these claims.
No Third Party Underwriting
Communication between you and your insurer is incredibly important. It will affect how you pay your bills, and file your claim, as well as how long they take to pay out your claim. If a company cannot insure you for as long as you own your boat, then it’s probably not a good idea to invest your money with them.
When an insurer hands your policy over to a third party insurer after they have made the sale, it will be very difficult to communicate with them when it comes to filing a claim.
Availability
Ensure your boat insurance provider can provide you with coverage in all the regions you intend to use your boat. For instance, if you move, you could decide to take your boat with you. This doesn’t mean that you have to get another insurance cover. Make your selection keenly as you make the decision.
Factors That Affect Your Boat Insurance
While you have control over the decision, including choosing the best boat for you and the best policy for you, others are entirely out of your control. Some can have an effect on your insurance rate, while others don’t.
How you use your boat, for instance, will definitely affect your insurance rates. If you only use your boat for occasional fishing trips, your trips will be much lower than if you use it more regularly and for an activity that is more vigorous.
The record of your boat insurance claims will also affect your premium. Generally, if you regularly file claims, and you’re taking out a new insurance premium for your boat, chances are your rate will be higher.
The people you add as drivers of the boat have to be experienced. If you add an inexperienced party, chances are they rates will be significantly higher than if you are the only driver on that record.
If you have completed your boating safety certification course, your rates will be lower. The safety measures you have taken to protect your boat will play a role in determining your insurance premium.
Ensure You Have All the Boat Insurance Information Before Taking out a Policy
Now that you have acquired all this boat insurance information, it is time you make a decision. You need to select a boating insurance company that can protect you as you go out and explore your passion for the sea.
Contact us in case of any queries on boating insurance, to provide guidance as you out a policy to insure your boat.
**This blog provides a brief overview of the terms and phrases used within the insurance industry. These definitions are not applicable in all states or for all insurance and financial products. This is not an insurance contract. Other terms, conditions and exclusions apply. Please read your official policy for full details about coverage. These definitions do not alter or modify the terms of any insurance contract.