A sailing friend wants to slip his recently acquired 28ft yacht. He does not have (or want) comprehensive insurance for the vessel, which is an older timber vessel in reasonable condition.
However, the yard where he plans to slip wants him to have $10m public liability insurance for the vessel (suppose in case it injures someone due to owner's actions).
I think some marinas also require the same liability insurance for berth hire or even short visits.
Question: Can this guy buy Public Liability insurance for this boat devoid of any other insurance, just to get it slipped?
If anyone has bought such stand-alone liability insurance, would you care to indicate who sells such and the range of premium price involved ?
r m insurance (r m group) looked after me very well. might be worth giving them a call.
Karsten, that's interesting.... from what I understand (and I could be wrong) as soon as the slipway operator gets the boat ready to slip, any public liability is under their coverage.
I slip my boat each year at Careel, they've never asked me for anything.
Unless he's leaving it on a hard stand where members of the public can wander around, but one would expect the yard to have that covered too....
Michael
Michael, I would have thought the same as you, but apparently as Frant says you need public liability insurance even to berth at the majority of marinas in Australia.
I have normal cover for my own boat, and public liability is always included as part of that; so I have not had any problems.
But I can understand some don't want full cover insurance, only public liability (equiv to Third Party insurance with cars). And often full cover drops off if you sail far enough offshore so in some cruising circumstances it is not attractive.
His problem is just to slip the boat over a weekend and do his own anti-fouling he needs public liability and his own insurers (and mine) would not sell liability insurance as a separate cover. I guess he'd have the same problem if he wanted to rent a marina berth.
It may be that boat liability cover is easy to buy overseas but for some reason not in the Australian market.
It's a real problem, last year I try a few places in Spencer Gulf SA and all the same no proof of cover no way to slip. Took me 6 month to find the place, but I use different method
- don't ask, just book a slip, "Ask yourself - do you fell lucky? "
I was that time. good luck
Try an online 3rd party policy with this crowd.
www.sydneyboating.com.au/page/boat_insurance.html
