Insurance or not?

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by estarzinger

No, it is the actuarial loss rate per boat - eg the likelihood that individual boat will suffer a loss.

So we'd see this reflected in premiums, with higher rates charged for insured value in older boats than newer ones?

I conducted an insurance survey here a couple months ago and found a rather broad range of insurance rates being paid for comprehensive (premium/insured value). The average came out to about 1.7% for the premium, but it ranged from something like 0.3% to over 6%.

I wonder if this range was due to age of boats. I wish I had asked for boat age in the survey.

[DumnMad]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

BTW how does one insure against their insurer's risk?

I mean: can I just walk into company B and tell them that I want to insure the risk of my insurance held with insurer company A?

Insurance companies are just companies. They too fall and fail to various reasons. How do you insure against this fact?

b.

Look around for the ones that charge too much. They are the ones which don't go bust.

[Lost Horizons]

I wonder whether there is a statistically significant correlation between the boat values and the rate of loss?

[estarzinger]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

So we'd see this reflected in premiums, with higher rates charged for insured value in older boats than newer ones?

I conducted an insurance survey here a couple months ago and found a rather broad range of insurance rates being paid for comprehensive (premium/insured value). The average came out to about 1.7% for the premium, but it ranged from something like 0.3% to over 6%.

I wonder if this range was due to age of boats. I wish I had asked for boat age in the survey.

Yes, the pricing algorithm raises the pricing rate as the boat age gets higher, everything else being equal. I do not know if it raises the rate "enough" to compensate for the extra risk. I never known why (despite having been an actuary) but mainstream insurance companies would generally rather just not cover some higher risks rather than pricing them up.

And speciality companies often make good money in those niches; but the "old boat" market does not seem an interesting niche even for speciality companies.