New Boat Insurance – Everything You Need To Know

After another tumultuous and hard-working year, it makes sense that you would want to treat yourself and take to the seas on a newly purchased boat. But are you across how to correctly take out new boat insurance?

We know the amount of care and thought that goes into purchasing a new vessel, so we want to ensure your marine insurance covers all the necessary requirements to keep your new boat afloat and keeps your experience stress free.

What is marine insurance?

Life on the water can be unpredictable. Which is why you need marine insurance that gives you the cover you need – when you need it.

Ensure that both yourself and your vessel are protected from any uncertainties of being on the water with new boat insurance.

Marine insurance can cover you for loss, damage, theft or injury to yourself or others.

What do I need to consider before taking out new boat insurance?

Are you considering taking out new boat insurance? There might be some important questions to consider before going through this process. This will help to determine the type of coverage that you will need to take out.

Most yachts and cruisers will need an out of water survey for the insurance company to consider. As a general rule of thumb, yachts and cruisers over 15 years old will need an out of water inspection within the last 12 months.

This means that buyers will need to have a ‘pre-purchase inspection’ done prior to any agreement to buy. The ‘pre-purchase inspection’ is often done at the expense of the purchaser and taken off the purchase price if the sale goes through.

These inspections will satisfy the insurer’s requirements. But they do take time. This is due to having to book a spot on the slip way, arrange an inspector, and then wait for the inspector to write up his report.

If the client is buying a yacht, then it’s common for insurance companies to insist that the rigging is replaced every 10 years. Buying a boat that’s more than 10 years old means that the buyer will also need to find out when the rigging was most recently replaced.

If the rigging has never been replaced or upgraded, that’s ok. We can still get the boat insured, but the insurance companies will look to make a deal around failure of the in-situ rig. We can help negotiate terms here.

In line with this, is an expectation that the boat owner will not be racing with a spinnaker. Most policies have an exclusion for spinnaker racing. We can include this cover at the request of the boat owner, but they need to be aware that it’s not an automatic inclusion. Contact us to learn more.

What types of boats can be insured?

We specialise in insuring marine vessels including:

• Pleasure crafts
• Personal watercrafts
• Commercial vessels
• Blue water/internationally based vessels

It is common for new boat purchasers, who think they’ve got an amazing deal, to insure their newly purchased boat for much more than they paid for it.

If the boat owner legitimately wants the boat insured for more than that, we get an independent boat broker to advise what they consider to be a fair and reasonable price for that vessel.

We can then get an agreed value policy at the value set by the boat broker, and can arrange this on behalf of the client for a fee.

Nearly every boat policy will allow the boat owner to go up to 250 nautical miles off the coast of Australia. This is what’s called the geographical limits of the policy.

So, it doesn’t matter where you take your boat, as long as it’s within that 250NM limit. Notable sailing/cruising destinations that fall outside of that limit include Lord Howe Island, New Caledonia or Vanuatu.

All of these destinations need special agreement for the insurance company to extend their geographical limits on the policy. We can negotiate this for the insured.

If you are looking to purchase a new marine vessel, it is important that you have the cover you need, right from the start.

Protect your new boat with the right insurance policy. Contact us today to find out how we can help!