The next and most important step was to acquire insurance for our soon to be new to us sailboat. With the use of a recommended broker from Jim we began the process of securing insurance. After sorting through the various quotes that were provided to us from the insurance broker, we decided on the policy that would allow us to operate our new vessel after “time” with an approved captain. I put time into parentheses because this would be one of the bigger headaches when it came to securing insurance. The other policies provided by the broker required us to have a captain for up to a year of operation which was just not going to work as we were going to be taking ownership of the boat in March and would need to have the boat out of Florida by July 1st.
Because we had an understanding that we were going to need to hire a captain we began researching local captains that could help get us some experience. At the same time, we were discussing with the insurance broker what the experience requirements were from the insurance company, of which opened an entire can of worms. After three weeks of back and forth with the insurance broker and getting nowhere in understanding what the requirements where going to be to get clearance to operate the vessel on our own, we decided to move onto new broker. After searching the internet for a bit we came across a broker located in Annapolis, MD by the name if Morgan Wells (see link to his contact information below). With Morgan our new broker helping us, we cleared up the convoluted issue of what exactly the insurance company expected from us in regards to hiring a captain. What took 3 weeks and tireless back and forth with the last broker, was cleared up with just a few emails, and Morgan was able to obtain a concise check list from the insurance company that described the exact exercises we needed to achieve before we could operate the vessel on our own. Amazing how some of these companies and brokers operate and able are to stay in business. This would be one of many learning lessons we would have when it came to the marine industry.
The hassle of understanding the insurer’s expectation would only be the beginning of the struggles we would experience with interpreting what the insurance company required in order to insure our new vessel. Surprisingly, one of the biggest lessons we learned with purchasing this boat was not even the requirements an insurance company had with the operator’s experience, but rather the requirements they had for survey results and fixing a majority of the issues that had ariose from the surveyor’s findings. This came as a shock to us as we were not really planning on fixing a majority of the issues as most of them were still functioning and in good working order. Obviously, the heat exchangers and other engine issues were on our top priority list but replacing running rigging or low freon in a refrigerator was not as we did not see these as safety items or issues that were going to inhibit us from safely operating the vessel. The insurance on the other hand thought differently. They required what was called a “letter of compliance”, which essentially was a list of survey findings that the insurance company felt needed to be fixed not necessarily before we operated the vessel, but in a reasonable time and wanted the owner to describe and consent to a certain date to have these items fixed. Again, another rabbit hole of back and forth began with our insurance broker trying to decipher what the insurance company wanted us to fix or what they wanted us to disclose on a “letter of compliance”. In our opinion, this letter was basically a get out of jail free card for the insurance company to lean on if we did not fix these certain items prior to the date we indicated and a claim was to arise. We went back and forth with the broker and insurance literally until the date of closing, not knowing if we were going to be able to be insured even with all the work we had already been getting done prior to closing and with what we had budgeted to do before operating the vessel. To keep the story short, it was cause for a lot of heartburn, and after we had got it sorted we still didn’t feel great about the coverage we had received. On top off all of these issues this policy was costing us over $7,000 for the year and had and $8,000 deductible. Double if you had damage sustained in a wind storm. Needless to say, the insurance saga continued throughout the ownership of the vessel and did really put a damper on purchasing such a high-priced vehicle.
Morgan Wells Insurance Broker Contact Information:
https://jackmartin.com/team/morgan-wells/
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