posting to forums may invalidate your insurance

[Seapig]

A cautionary tale.

I have recently spoken with a cruiser who's insurance company tried to refuse payment because he had asked for electrical advice on a forum. They used this as proof that he had done minor electrical work himself and as he was not a qualified marine electrician, they contended that he had replaced a relay incorrectly and that had caused the fire and loss of his boat.
It took two years and lots of lawyers to get his money and even then he couldn't get insurance for five years.

[tkeithlu]

Hmmmm. My insurance company insured the hull when I built the boat myself, often out of scrap from a local yard. I'm not a qualified anything.

I'm reminded of a friend who burned down a wing of his house as a result of his having put a stove pipe against flammable insulation. When he talked with his insurance company, and gently inquired about his error and coverage, the agent told him "Don't worry. We insure people against their own stupidity."

Just about every non-lightning fire is the result of human error of some type. The rest are the result of human intent.

I think he needed another insurance company.

[Sailing August]

Insurance companies are horrible. They will do anything not to pay.

[PaulCrawhorn]

Who uses their IRL name to post online?

Stupid

[Orion Jim]

Originally Posted by PaulCrawhorn

Who uses their IRL name to post online?

Stupid

So Paul Crawhorn is a nom de plume? I use my real name on one forum which consists primarily of club members.
Insurance companies are in the business of collecting premiums and paying the smallest portion against policy claims as is possible. I once spent two years in litigation only to have them pay out the full policy one day before a court appearance was due. They KNEW they would lose the case but they have no conscience.

[JPA Cate]

The job of the insurance company has never been to help us. It has always been to make money for the shareholders. You can expect them to adhere to the letter of the policy, no more. It is your responsibility to know what is covered and what is not.

Mercy or generosity are outside their purview.

Make your expectations reasonable, and do your homework. As in if someone collides with your docked vessel, get their name in writing while they are still shook up, and the name of their insurance company, and preferably the # of the policy, as well. And then, armed with that info, you can ask your ins. co. to tell you how to go after theirs. It may involve sitting in their office, and starting to raise your voice.

Ann

[Dogscout]

So the dude replaced the relay incorrectly, it caught fire and he does not want to take responsibility for his screwup and wants his insurance to pay out for his shoddy work. Is that what I read?

[Sailmonkey]

Originally Posted by Dogscout

So the dude replaced the relay incorrectly, it caught fire and he does not want to take responsibility for his screwup and wants his insurance to pay out for his shoddy work. Is that what I read?

That’s what insurance is for…..mistakes or mishaps.

[TrentePieds]

Insurance coverage is just a bet. The terms of the bet are set out in the "wordings" of the "policy", i.e. in the contract. Know those terms!

You bet that something 'orrible will happen to you. The insurer (the "underwriter") bets that nothing will happen to you. For all the fancy language, that is all there is to it!

An insurance "adjuster's" job, a duty he owes to his employer, is to deny any claim by any means he can. Slack-botted, merciful adjusters get the can!

TrentePieds

[Sailshabby]

Originally Posted by Dogscout

So the dude replaced the relay incorrectly, it caught fire and he does not want to take responsibility for his screwup and wants his insurance to pay out for his shoddy work. Is that what I read?

Said the secret insurance agent. Insurance should only cover acts of God?

[Russ]

That's why you only buy Liability insurance and NOT what in the automobile world is called collision, comprehensive, fire, and theft coverage.

[sailorboy1]

Originally Posted by tkeithlu

Hmmmm. My insurance company insured the hull when I built the boat myself, often out of scrap from a local yard. I'm not a qualified anything

Lets not mistake that they wrote a policy and collected your money as meaning they will pay a claim.

[goboatingnow]

Negligence is not reason to deny payout unless the specific negligence is mentioned in the policy document. Negligence is one of the reasons we have comprehensive insurance after all.

I don’t know who you are insuring with , but I know several payouts that were made because of direct negligence by the insured

[Tetepare]

I’ll bet the insured in question blew himself in. “See! They agree with me!”

[billgewater]

Insurance. Its intention is to guarantee the survival and prosperity of the insurers. Consider: -
If you make a successful claim, generally the repair agents (boat yard etc.) will lift the quote cost as they know the insurers usually have no competent assessors – or they pass on these other costs to you anyway. That increase in repair costs means that your premiums will go up. You have made a claim, been naughty, so you cop a whack.

If there is a major claims event (cyclone, flooding, marina fire) then due to the sudden extra demand for scarce qualified repair staff, the overall quality of the repairs must go down. Or you wait for ages to get anything done. Anecdotes don’t count here.

The more items you have insured (house, car, boat, health, income, family jewels etc.) then from a simple mathematical stance the less chance you have of overall justification for any insurance. That’s why the insurance companies survive and pay eye watering bonus handouts to management and work from grandiose buildings. It is the insurance companies that are assured of survival, not you.
Wonder why insurance companies never advertise their “return” rates to the insured? 3%, 10% ? Who knows? Probably an embarrassing %.

Some claim that they invest the premiums carefully and use the income from that source to cover the outgoing claim costs. Just ask what happened to AIG during the GFC and who bailed them out. Greed and really bad ethics has no bounds.

What insurance companies are really good at is market manipulation. E.g. cornering those who want/need insurance into a corner where they can’t act collectively and undercut the insurance companies. (Divide and conquer.)

In the marina I use there are about 100 boats. Probably paying about $2000 pa each for insurance - extremely rough conservative estimate. So over the 12 years I have been here that is about 100x2000x12 dollars $2 400 000. During that time one boat required assistance when it sprung a plank. Probably cost about $50 000 to $100000.Two or three boats had lightening hits and one of those really had big costs, but today, lightening cover, costs extra, and many owners select to not have it so it’s hard to include. Not a bad business, eh?

That’s a return to the insured community of about 2.4%. Even if I am out by a factor of 10 it’s still only 24%. So, the insurance company gets to keep over three quarters or more of the premiums. OK. This is not what happens when a cyclone hits a marina, but cyclones are, overall, a rarity. (Oh yes, many policies now exclude named storms anyway!)

Yes, they have costs and tax to pay (unless operating from the Caymans) but it still sounds like a rather juicy little earner to me.