Insurance For An Older Yacht?

[TabbyCat]

Originally Posted by cpttroy

Looking for a little help, I have a 1973 Alden booth bay explorer 58ft. Im looking for a company which would cover my older but beautiful yacht, having a hard time.
Any help would be awesome.

Should not be a problem with a survey. We have a program for classic yachts with ACE. You're in Tennesse?!

[leftbrainstuff]

Originally Posted by lifeofreilly57

While going through the insurance purchasing ritual on our new/old boat I made sure to go in with as much knowledge as possible so I wouldn't get hornswaggled. The hull value does ad to the overall insurance cost but not as much as you would think.
Liability is up there, spill coverage, uninsured passengers, etc, etc, so hull value doesn't have as much effect on insurance cost as you'd think.
I have the full spill coverage ($864,000.00 CG limit), full liability and an agreed hull value of $130,000.00 on a 47' boat and pay $1300.00 a year. Yes it did require a survey but I had one anyway when I purchased it, just for my own protection. I need to add an addendum to the policy when I go more than 75 miles from shore but in the mean time it's not required for the next year, no time to go to the islands while I work to pay for the required refit hardware.
The hull value didn't have as much effect as I thought it would but rather the liability coverage did.
I do still live and sail in the litigious US and need to protect myself accordingly.
Getting a good agent to explain the different costs will allow you to decide what level of protection you need, usually protecting yourself from others is more consuming than the cost of replacing the boat.
Most of all, read up on a few good articles on the hows and whys of marine insurance, it pays to go into it with some knowledge, a little knowledge goes a long way.
Anybody from any country other than the US out there who can compare insurance costs from a less lawsuit happy country? Just curious to know how much it affects our insurance costs.

We had similar costs for our Liberty 458. We're Australians resident in the US.

We had to provide evidence of our competency as this was our first boat purchase. My wife has plenty of sailing experience, including a couple of Sydney Hobarts and 11 years sailing for the Australian Army interservice team. I have an engineering, testing and safety background. We halved our annual rate.

We had a local waters and NorCal constraint until we replaced standing rigging. We just renewed our insurance and couldn't find a better deal.

Unfortunately Pantanius is restrictive because we're forced to deal with their Australian agent. They were our preferred option.



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[Jolly Roger]

Last week I had an insurance survey on my 1977 Down East 45 schooner, with a view to getting it insured to go cruising, after a four year refit.
The surveyor came up with a “fair market value” of only $75,000, which he admitted was pretty much a guess, because he could not find any other DE 45’s sold in “boats sold” to form a comparison value.
However, it is now making it difficult for me to find an insurance which will give me a replacement value above this $75,000 figure. I want something like $120,000, which is what I would expect to sell her for.
Could anyone please let me know, private PM if you like, if you have sold, or bought a DE45 recently, or even a very similar type boat, and at what price.
If I can show even a single sale at a higher price, the surveyor will amend the value.

[TabbyCat]

Jolly Roger,
I checked Buc Book for a 1977 45 Downeast schooner, and it came back with a value of
$76,700-$84,300 That's for a boat in average condition, located in the Northeast. You can add in the cost of major improvements (not maintenance) to that.

[Emmalina]

If you have a very limited quantity boat that may or may not be classed as mass production they generally say market value. That requires you to find another one for sale ! Fortunately at the time one of my boats 14 sisters was listed. They then gave me 2 choices. Replacement value (chosen by me around the for sale price) Or replacement value (to build a new one) I chose option 1. The company is QBE an australian company I think but we use them here in Thailand. I have found them to be very good and had to claim a few years ago without too much grief.

[TabbyCat]

" Replacement value (chosen by me around the for sale price) Or replacement value (to build a new one) I chose option 1."
There is a lot of confusion out there regarding these terms, so here's a clarification, let's assume a 1997 boat:

1) Fair Market Value = What a similar condition 1997 vessel would sell for on the open market
2) New For Old- an insurance term meaning they will replace your 1997 parts with this years (2015) model. Refers to parts, not the entire boat.
3) Replacement Value- in a survey, to the surveyor it means what it would cost to build a new 2015 boat; the number is many times higher than what a 1997 bat would be worth. An insurance company will not insure for replacement value as thusly defined, otherwise this would encourage people to buy 1997 vessels, insure them for 2015 values, and then have an "accent" and reap huge profits.
4) Agreed Value - in an insurance declarations page, it is the amount that the underwriter and the insured have agreed that the boat is worth. In the event of a total loss (sinking, hurricane, fire, for example) it is the amount the insured will be paid, less any deductible. No haggling over depreciation- the amount to be paid is agreed on in advance. Very good coverage.
5) Actual Cash Value- in an insurance declarations page, it is an alternate way of valuing a total loss claim- kind of the opposite of Agreed Value. With an ACV policy, the adjuster calculates the value of the property destroyed at the time of the claim, so there may be depreciation applied. You do not know what your payout will be in advance of the claim. This coverage generally costs less than Agreed Value, and is often the only option offered on older yachts.
6) With insurance policies, do not assume that the word "replacement" means "New"!. "Replacement" in insurance policies usually refers to partial loss situations, in which the boat is NOT totaled. Replacement Cost means the cost to repair the Vessel with materials, parts, labor and equipment of like kind and quality to that which is being replaced so that the Vessel is in substantially the same condition as it was immediately prior to the loss. So in a partial loss situation, you're making repairs, not replacing an entire boat. An example of a partial loss might be a lightning claim or a collision. So it is quite normal to get new (2015) electronics on your 1997 boat after your lightning strike (partial loss); However, you'd never receive a whole new 2015 boat when making a total loss claim on a 1997 boat, since if the boat is totaled, it's not being "repaired". Make sense?