Licences

[Arthur Marshall]

The problem with insurances is that once you make it compulsory, you give the companies a licence to charge whatever they like, with no relationship to the service provided or its actual costs. Competition doesn't bring prices down because they , like all major companies, operate as a cartel and, due to the glory of small print that either nobody reads or understands, it's impossible to compare value of their various offerings. All you know is that they will do their best to refuse any claim you make, and then use that claim to justify a further increase in premiums. Of course, the BSC works on exactly the same principle, so we should be used to it by now.

By the way , if anyone wants to use my mooring location as a ghost mooring to save money on their licence, my renewal EOG fee to CRT is just over £800 this year for a forty foot boat. I'm sure CCers will be queueing up to save money...

[Alan de Enfield]

Interesting that C&RT will charge you £30 to change your licence 'status' (from Home mooring to CCer or vice versa)

 

To prepare for the additional charge for boats without a home mooring, we are in the process of updating our systems to allow customers to submit evidence of their home mooring where required.
You will be able to upload your proof of mooring status when you receive your renewal document. Further information on this process will be provided with your renewal notice. Changes made to your mooring status at the time of your licence renewal will not incur any administration charge, but changes made part way through the licence period will incur an administration charge of £30.

If the change in your mooring status has not been verified before you buy/renew your licence, there may be a delay or you may only be able to licence your boat as a continuous cruiser (once the mooring has been verified, this can be changed to home mooring and any additional charge refunded).

 

 

Changing from continuous cruiser to home mooring

You will need to provide the details of your mooring contract, which must be for six months or more. If you pay for a monthly mooring, you can retrospectively claim a refund on the continuous cruiser surcharge if you can show six consecutive monthly mooring agreements/payments. In this case your status will remain as ‘continuous cruiser’ and you will receive a pro rata refund of paid surcharge from the date you notify the Trust of the change providing you have provided the necessary evidence.

 

Full details on the boaters update (24th Feb)

[haggis]

3 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Interesting that C&RT will charge you £30 to change your licence 'status' (from Home mooring to CCer or vice versa)

Fairly standard now with most things. If you need to make a change mid term there is an admin fee.

[LadyG]

I had a claim, Craftinsure with £400 excess, they paid the claim, no quibble. I paid a bit extra to upgrade, so all in all it worked out.

I think they pushed the premìm, but I dont mind, it still makes insurance an affordable cushion.

[Alan de Enfield]

1 minute ago, haggis said:

Fairly standard now with most things. If you need to make a change mid term there is an admin fee.

 

Indeed - got to screw every penny out of the punters.

I don't see how the cost can be justified unless they are writing / printing out / posting revised copies of the agreement. The computers are sitting there, the staff are sitting there - what would they be doing if they weren't amending your details ?

 

Is there really a 'lost opportunty' cost that they could have been doing some other income generating work ?

[Tacet]

10 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

Indeed - got to screw every penny out of the punters.

I don't see how the cost can be justified unless they are writing / printing out / posting revised copies of the agreement. The computers are sitting there, the staff are sitting there - what would they be doing if they weren't amending your details ?

 

Is there really a 'lost opportunty' cost that they could have been doing some other income generating work ?

Indeed.  In the same way,  why should I have to pay the fare when the bus is going to my destination anyway?

[Mad Harold]

26 minutes ago, LadyG said:

I had a claim, Craftinsure with £400 excess, they paid the claim, no quibble. I paid a bit extra to upgrade, so all in all it worked out.

I think they pushed the premìm, but I dont mind, it still makes insurance an affordable cushion.

I have only had one motor insurance claim in my life, when I reversed into a bollard.

The company paid out, but I worked out that I had actually paid for the repair in lost and reduced no claims discounts over the next five years.

I would only insure my car third party if it was cheaper than comprehensive, but it is dearer.

[Alan de Enfield]

15 minutes ago, Tacet said:

Indeed.  In the same way,  why should I have to pay the fare when the bus is going to my destination anyway?

 

Fair comment but not really a good comparison.

 

I've already paid for a 'season ticket', but because I've moved house I need to pay for them to change my details on the computer !

 

[Midnight]

47 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Interesting that C&RT will charge you £30 to change your licence 'status' (from Home mooring to CCer or vice versa)

 

To prepare for the additional charge for boats without a home mooring, we are in the process of updating our systems to allow customers to submit evidence of their home mooring where required.
You will be able to upload your proof of mooring status when you receive your renewal document. Further information on this process will be provided with your renewal notice. Changes made to your mooring status at the time of your licence renewal will not incur any administration charge, but changes made part way through the licence period will incur an administration charge of £30.

If the change in your mooring status has not been verified before you buy/renew your licence, there may be a delay or you may only be able to licence your boat as a continuous cruiser (once the mooring has been verified, this can be changed to home mooring and any additional charge refunded).

 

 

Changing from continuous cruiser to home mooring

You will need to provide the details of your mooring contract, which must be for six months or more. If you pay for a monthly mooring, you can retrospectively claim a refund on the continuous cruiser surcharge if you can show six consecutive monthly mooring agreements/payments. In this case your status will remain as ‘continuous cruiser’ and you will receive a pro rata refund of paid surcharge from the date you notify the Trust of the change providing you have provided the necessary evidence.

 

Full details on the boaters update (24th Feb)

 

The whole surcharge idea is a dog's dinner and will cause more problems than it fixes. It's going to be a nightmare to administer so I just cannot see how it will be cost-effective. It would be so much easier to manage and better for the budget if we all paid the same (higher) license fees. I suspect surcharges will be ditched before 5 years are up. About time Parry & Co were ditched too.

[peterboat]

22 minutes ago, Midnight said:

 

The whole surcharge idea is a dog's dinner and will cause more problems than it fixes. It's going to be a nightmare to administer so I just cannot see how it will be cost-effective. It would be so much easier to manage and better for the budget if we all paid the same (higher) license fees. I suspect surcharges will be ditched before 5 years are up. About time Parry & Co were ditched too.

I agree the management of CRT have forced on us the worst of all systems 

[Arthur Marshall]

1 hour ago, Midnight said:

 

The whole surcharge idea is a dog's dinner and will cause more problems than it fixes. It's going to be a nightmare to administer so I just cannot see how it will be cost-effective. It would be so much easier to manage and better for the budget if we all paid the same (higher) license fees. I suspect surcharges will be ditched before 5 years are up. About time Parry & Co were ditched too.

Agreed. There should never have been a differentiation between moorers and CCers in the first place apart from giving the CCers the 14 day mooring right. Just leave the home moorers to pay whatever they get charged for the facilities they want. Much fairer all round.

[Col_T]

4 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

The computers are sitting there, the staff are sitting there - what would they be doing if they weren't amending your details ?

Computers systems are not cheap to have in operation; staff are not cheap to have just “sitting there”. If these things are not actually doing stuff, they wouldn’t be there e.g. smaller servers would be running at higher capacity, fewer staff sitting there doing nothing.

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

I’ve noticed on CRT’s license calculations they have introduced a monthly breakdown and a weekly breakdown of the annual license fee,

not that you can pay by the monthly or weekly figures quoted,

so it’s simply a less than subtle way of saying the license is only going up a few quid a week,

or are CRT introducing an option to pay by 12 monthly or by 52 weekly installments?? 

(up til now you’ve been able pay monthly, but it’s 9 monthly payments)

[Rob-M]

5 hours ago, Midnight said:

 

The whole surcharge idea is a dog's dinner and will cause more problems than it fixes. It's going to be a nightmare to administer so I just cannot see how it will be cost-effective. It would be so much easier to manage and better for the budget if we all paid the same (higher) license fees. I suspect surcharges will be ditched before 5 years are up. About time Parry & Co were ditched too.

But would all the ccers be happy paying the increased rate to bring them up to the same level as the home moorers pay through the mooring surcharge?

[Arthur Marshall]

1 minute ago, Rob-M said:

But would all the ccers be happy paying the increased rate to bring them up to the same level as the home moorers pay through the mooring surcharge?

I don't think it would work like that. If I moored in a marina, 40 foot boat, would the marina be passing on £800 of what they charged me to CRT? I suspect it would be a lot less. So the licence wouldn't need to go up by so much as that for it to balance out. I'd guess a 50% increase all round would do it and save a small fortune in paperwork.

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

7 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

I don't think it would work like that. If I moored in a marina, 40 foot boat, would the marina be passing on £800 of what they charged me to CRT? I suspect it would be a lot less. So the licence wouldn't need to go up by so much as that for it to balance out. I'd guess a 50% increase all round would do it and save a small fortune in paperwork.

and of course that would be your choice to do so,

why would a ccer then be penalised for your choice 🤷‍♀️

 

there are lots of spaces in marinas that the marina still pay a whack to CRT for,

should ccers be penalised for those too?

Edited February 24 by beerbeerbeerbeerbeer

[LadyG]

5 hours ago, peterboat said:

I agree the management of CRT have forced on us the worst of all systems 

I think they had to charge extra for widebeams, not so sure about cc, it might be tricky.

[Arthur Marshall]

31 minutes ago, beerbeerbeerbeerbeer said:

and of course that would be your choice to do so,

why would a ccer then be penalised for your choice 🤷‍♀️

 

there are lots of spaces in marinas that the marina still pay a whack to CRT for,

should ccers be penalised for those too?

I was just replying to a post that implied licence costs would have to double. No need to get shirty...

But you could as well argue that I'm being penalised because a load of freeloaders are neither paying their way nor following the spirit (and often) the letter of the law. I think there's little doubt that it's a small minority of CCers who actually, genuinely cruise rather than hang about in a twenty mile zone, avoiding locks as if they were inventions of the devil. A couple on the Macc have been doing it for as long as I've been here, and good luck to them (it's a lovely lifestyle) but it sure aint being on a cruise. And before you ask, it wouldn't suit me.

I'm not actually arguing either way, I'm quite happy paying for my mooring, my mooring fees, and my licence. I'm just taking part in a discussion.

ETA if you'd bothered to try to follow my argument instead of getting instantly nowty, you'd have noticed that it was implying that the unused spaces being paid for by the marinas would lower the need to raise licence costs for all parties, not raise them. But then, you're not really interested.

Edited February 24 by Arthur Marshall

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

Sorry Arthur, hold

your horses, I didn’t mean to come across like I may have. 
 

I should have replied to the post above you. 
 

Either way, wasn’t to be read as being shirty. 
 

1 hour ago, Rob-M said:

But would all the ccers be happy paying the increased rate to bring them up to the same level as the home moorers pay through the mooring surcharge?

I’ll come back to this because Arthur’s obviously got the wrong end of the stick and took it a rant too far. 
 

Simple answer Rob-M, is no,

there’s been discussion over and over again about this, with the fors and against.

But it matters not a jot now CRT have introduced a surcharge aimed at those using the system more.

( putting aside the ironic argument CCers never move but should pay more for using the system)
 

and here’s a smiley 🙂 so you dont take my response the wrong way. 
 

[Alan de Enfield]

57 minutes ago, LadyG said:

I think they had to charge extra for widebeams, not so sure about cc, it might be tricky.

 

Would that have anything to do with the fact you are a Narrowbeam CCer ?

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

54 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

But you could as well argue that I'm being penalised because a load of freeloaders are neither paying their way nor following the spirit (and often) the letter of the law.

I will ask how you come to that conclusion?

Because in turn I’d be penalised  too. 
 

[Midnight]

1 hour ago, Rob-M said:

But would all the ccers be happy paying the increased rate to bring them up to the same level as the home moorers pay through the mooring surcharge?

 

CCers are going to have to pay the increased rate through the surcharge. No surcharge would just be a lot easier to manage and C&RT would get more from license increases.

[Rob-M]

4 minutes ago, Midnight said:

 

CCers are going to have to pay the increased rate through the surcharge. No surcharge would just be a lot easier to manage and C&RT would get more from license increases.

But you said everyone pay the same but it wouldn't be the same unless the fee paid by marinas was removed and added to everyone's license fee instead.

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

4 minutes ago, Rob-M said:

But you said everyone pay the same but it wouldn't be the same unless the fee paid by marinas was removed and added to everyone's license fee instead.

 

but what you’re calling the surcharge for having a mooring is a surcharge for exactly that,

ain’t it?

 

I don’t have a mooring should I pay a mooring surcharge?

 

I don’t get the logic behind it,

but I can understand a reasoning behind a usage surcharge 

 

[BoatinglifeupNorth]

2 hours ago, beerbeerbeerbeerbeer said:

I’ve noticed on CRT’s license calculations they have introduced a monthly breakdown and a weekly breakdown of the annual license fee,

not that you can pay by the monthly or weekly figures quoted,

so it’s simply a less than subtle way of saying the license is only going up a few quid a week,

or are CRT introducing an option to pay by 12 monthly or by 52 weekly installments?? 

(up til now you’ve been able pay monthly, but it’s 9 monthly payments)

I always opt or the the 9 month period monthly repayments, as look forward to having 3 months with a little extra in the bank.

 Just used the new licence calculator to compare licensing, my current licence £1385 with home mooring.(£2700). The continuous Cruising licence £1454. So I doubt many CCers will be rushing to get into Marina’s to save money, not even in 5 years time.