Offshore Risk Management

[Fullmoon]

I am looking at a quote for my sailboat by this company. It is around 25% lower that my current policy. Has anyone heard of this company or had any experience with them paying a claim? Like the price but the policy is only as good as the payoff history.

[boatman61]

A name is very useful in assesment/opinion....

[Intentional Drifter]

I think that's what's in the subject line, "Offshore Risk Management."

Personally, I don't know them. I've always referred to IMIS. TabbyCat (Susan Ratrie) is a CF member. She's always given us great service, and she's a cruiser, too.

ID

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by Intentional Drifter

I think that's what's in the subject line, "Offshore Risk Management."

Personally, I don't know them. I've always referred to IMIS. TabbyCat (Susan Ratrie) is a CF member. She's always given us great service, and she's a cruiser, too.

ID

Dohhhh...
Thanks Drifter.... fading brain cells I guess....
Never heard of em...

[Fullmoon]

Thanks, I will contact her for a quote.

[jim767]

I just received a quote through IMIS. The coverage area, basically world wide excluding a few areas, crew requirements etc were very liberal. The policy is underwritten by Markel US.

I have been happy with the service of IMIS so far.

[Fullmoon]

Thanks for the imput.

[sv_makai]

We had there coverage for several years, but never filed a claim. Our experince with them just getting policy paper work was always an effort. They would loose things faxed to them repeatedly. Getting the paper from them required work as well.

They were a referral from another cruiser, but will probably not use them for the next boat.

[Fullmoon]

Thanks for the information.

[off-the-grid]

They were pretty quick to respond to me with multiple quotes, although not the cheapest.

[AnchorageGuy]

We had a very, very bad experience with this company and would recommend you consider IMIS also. Ask around with anyone that has been in the marine insurance business about Offshore Risk Management and they can give you the straight scoop. We can tell you all of the stories about how they did not submit payment to underwriters and folks out cruising were not insured and did not know it and we can tell you how they raised our premium $500 after we paid it in full and paid the amount quoted and they gave us 24 hours to pay the extra or cancel our insurance or some of the other horror stories. But we won't bore you with that. You might even check with the State of Florida to verify their license to sell insurance in Florida. Chuck

[sailorjazz]

Had a bad claims experience with Markel, basically they will do what ever they have to find a way out of it, but I had them dead to rights with an experienced surveyor who examined the boat immediately after the lightning loss, and they had recently lost a previous litigation that the same surveyor was part of. They tried to get me to settle the claim even before the haul out inspection, and then later they effectively made me sign off before they would send me the last check, which I did because I did not want it to drag into litigation. So I may have lost some $$ at the end but who wants to go to court? They are counting on this to save $$. Markel uses TMS National, which started dictating how repairs were to be made etc. (how you spend the insurance check and make repairs - or not, is your call, not theirs, they wanted proof of repairs before paying out - meaning you make the repairs on your own dime first - wrong! I called them out on this behavior and only then did they send me $$ upfront to make the repairs. You have the right to collect for the surveyed damages and decide not to repair the boat, or do it yourself etc. but be careful, if you do it yourself before getting the $$ they won't pay you for your time or labor involved after the fact) and flaked several times in regards to their scheduled surveys of the boat, they said they would have it done, scheduled date(s) and then flaked and canceled these without even telling me, and finally sent their rep. ( not an independent third party surveyor) to go through the boat on a witch hunt for anything wrong that had nothing to do with the loss, trying to determine pre-exisiting conditions - things that were there at the original survey a year before which they wrote the policy from... The most important thing after a loss is to immediately get your own professional survey, don't trust the insurance co. to do this and if they do they only have in their interest of finding a way to pay the least possible. What surprised me is after paying out so much money they dissed me in the end, and lost my business as a result. Don't trust Markel.

[JPA Cate]

Insurance companies are in business to make money for the stockholders. You are responsible for knowing what is covered, and protecting yourself against their bullying, shifty ways. Not all are so bad, possibly, but many seem to be.

Ann

[Andy73]

Originally Posted by sailorjazz

(how you spend the insurance check and make repairs - or not, is your call, not theirs, they wanted proof of repairs before paying out -

I find this an interesting point... I encountered the same thing with home insurance after a hurricane.

If you have a general insurance policy on your boat, and you make a claim against it... Are you really entitled to a lump sum? Or is it appropriate for the insurance only to pay for the repair/replacement of the damaged items (assuming not a write off situation).

I agree you shouldn't have to pay out of pocket prior to receiving the money, but I am not sure about the insurance company just cutting a check either...

Additionally, if you were to receive money, then choose not to replace/repair, wouldn't the insurance company be entitled to that information to ensure future policies & claims were accurate?