insurance providers - who has given good service in a claim

[homer2911]

Navigators & General were absolutely suberb in their dealings with my claim two or three years ago, persisting in going after the third party responsible for damage to my boat.

[Lady Muck]

The guy who had a major falling out with his builder and the boat became trashed (choosing my words carefully here as I don't think there was ever a definitive court case) had insured his boat with Towergate Mardon whilst it was in build and they paid up promptly.

TM are very good on contents insurance for liveaboards, too. We do a ring round about every three years but have never got a lower quote that had everything we need.

I put in a claim with towergate mardon when I had business equipment stolen away from the boat. Excellent service, paid claim in full.

[Henhouse]

From the Kelly Louise blog, it is the post dated November 27th 2014, which raises one of the main issues. Which I have cut and pasted below:

 

 

"My surveyor also indicated that I was about to embark on very difficult times regarding my own insurance company, as all marine insurance in the UK is governed by a very outdated Act of Parliament - read it for yourself here: Marine Insurance Act 1906. This gives marine insurance companies many rights, that can sometimes seem very unfair to the modern leisure boater, in such serious situations. He wished me good luck as we parted."

 

 

If this is the case, then to my mind it suggests that all insurers have an ace card in the event of a claim being made for a catastrophic loss.

 

Is the Marine Insurance Act of 1906, which was mostly intended for commercial vessels a suitable piece of legislation for insurers to use in regard of the leisure craft in use on inland waterways ?

 

Should we not all be asking our insurers what their position is ?

 

[Starcoaster]

I've not had to claim on my own insurance, but I claimed against someone else's with Towergate Marden, and they were incredibly shonky.

Took months and months to make an offer of settlement on a ridiculously straightforward claim (damage witnessed, liability accepted by steerer, damage verified by an independent professional). They were great at not getting back to you when they say they will, and also not telling you when you might expect them to finally do something.

[cuthound]

I wonder why the person whose boat sank at the boatyard after being shot blasted and blacked didn't try harder to get the name of the boatyards insurer? (At least that's the impression his blog gives)

 

Surely he could have at least sent a solicitors letter to them?

 

After all it is in the boatyards interest not to reveal the name of their insurer to avoid an increase in premium.

 

I am with N & G and will be closely befalling the wording of the policy.

[Raz]

I wonder why the person whose boat sank at the boatyard after being shot blasted and blacked didn't try harder to get the name of the boatyards insurer? (At least that's the impression his blog gives)

 

Surely he could have at least sent a solicitors letter to them?

 

After all it is in the boatyards interest not to reveal the name of their insurer to avoid an increase in premium.

 

I am with N & G and will be closely befalling the wording of the policy.

I am the owner who is mentioned here whose boat sank during routine maintenance carried out by a marina. My blog, also mentioned here was to inform other boat owners of the potential to loose everything without really trying, so that they might be more prudent in their own dealings with marinas, boatyards and insurance companies. I know my posts are long and difficult to read, but so was the incident that lasted most of 2014, and still didn't have a satisfactory resolution, where I felt I had no alternative in the end other than to dispose of my boat as salvage due to all the circumstances I have already described. It was never my intention to name and shame, just to make others aware of what can happen, and in full detail, although I am still unable to publish the name of the marina concerned due to ongoing attempts to recoup some of the unfair costs they levied before I could remove my boat from their premises. (The boat sank while they were working on it and in their care, and then they chose to send invoices for storage charges throughout the year while I attempted to sort things out, without any help from them and even before my insurance claim was settled).

• My fully comprehensive insurance was with Craftinsure, underwritten by Navigators & General. I had cover with them without claim from 2006. My claim was passed to the underwriters due to the possible size of the claim.
• They made it clear from the start that I had no recourse to the 3rd party insurer to claim from them if I continued with my claim to my own insurer. It was of no concern to me if N&G chose to reclaim from a 3rd party insurer their payout to me or not. Any claim to Craftinsure would have to be within the terms of my policy with them, which came nowhere near to what was required by my own surveyor. Nothing that had been damaged could be replaced with new. In the end N&G did reclaim their costs from the marina's insurer, but all I got out of it was the refund of my £300 excess payment.
• In the first instance, using the advice of N&G's representative, I wrote to the marina owner requesting details of their insurer so a direct claim could be made to them and perhaps I might have access to a more detailed repair that way. I never received a reply, other than an acknowledgemnt of my request from the marina manager.
• As such, again on the advice of N&G, I arranged to use legal expenses insurance I had with another policy to pursue uninsured losses. My solicitor, after gathering all related information to my case and making an assessment, also wrote to the marina owner on the 10th June requesting the same information. I have a later letter from my solicitor stating that "the marina owner had not yet given him the decency of a reply" and he would write again.
• The long process of obtaining estimates for repair that would satisfy my own insurer went on from there, with many dificulties, as I found other yards did not want to become involved. Eventually, after many months I felt I had no alternative but to accept a settlement of £5000 in lieu of repairs. I had argued black and blue that their repairs were insufficient to provide a reliable future for our boat. This is why we decided to sell it unrepaired. My own surveyor's estimates for satisfactory detailed repairs were around £20,000.
• During this process N&G were informed of the marina's insurer, but by the end of July I had settled with them in full and final payment. The legal process went on, and by now my solicitor also knew the identity of the marina's insurer, and put a claim together for reasonable uninsured losses. This was rejected out of hand by the other insurer, as I had already accepted my claim from N&G. They did however accept full liability, but would only repay N&G's costs, their payout to me.
• Due to the nature of legal expenses insurance (which I now consider to be a waste of time), with no 3rd party insurer to claim from, in their eyes my action now had a less than 51% chance of success. As a consequence legal funding was withdrawn, although I was advised that I still had a viable claim direct with the marina owners. However, this could not be funded by this action, although I was free to make a further claim to use LEI to pursue that. This meant starting from scratch, and with potential costs escalating, (storage charges), I decided I was on a route to nowhere there.

I made enquiries with two specialist marine law companies, who wanted £10,000 to undertake preliminary case assessments, with an estimated £30,000 final cost to gain success at court. Should a court case fail, then costs could double due to having to fund all court costs. This of course was not viable, and that is where we ended up - selling the boat for salvage and adding the £5000 insurance payout to that. That equated to a loss of around £20,000 on what I might have expected to sell our boat for in an unsunken condition. Yes, I threw the towel in, but I was getting nowhere with anybody, and after all those months of worry, I had had enough.

 

My reply has again been long, but if I made every detail known I could probably fill a book. I hope this answers some questions that have been posted on this forum about insurance as well as trusting marinas and boatyards to undertake work on your behalf.

[cuthound]

Thanks for providing the detail to this sorry case Peter. I am genuinely sorry for you.

 

It makes you wonder why we pay insurance. On the face of it it looked like a simple case of negligence by the boatyard, with costs easily recovered by their insurer.

 

Just goes to show.

 

I don't know what else could have been done to secure a better outcomeoutcome.

[wandering snail]

Craftinsure, aka Zurich, aka Nav & Gen have been pretty good with the JCB crashing in to our boat claim. Having said that, our (and their) claim against the JCB owner to recoup insured and uninsured losses is still dragging on, two and a half years later! And we are still waiting to hear if we can go ahead to repair damage still not put right. We empathise with Raz, it would be so easy to throw in the towel.

[bigcol]

Hi there

 

Really sorry to hear such a tragic case, and will worry a lot of folks re what is insurance for!!

I always thought that no damage caused by galvanic damage, rust etc would be paid for anyway.

 

What I would like to know please

 

If you had the forthought

 

What would you have done said different, that you think may have made a difference to your claim

What could been done to get a better outcome.

 

This is what may help others if this happens again.

 

Thank you in advance

 

Big col

[Puddlejumper]

Haven Knox Johnson would get my vote had a engine blow years ago massive claim and not 1 haputh of trub with them very helpfull

[Raz]

Hi there

 

Really sorry to hear such a tragic case, and will worry a lot of folks re what is insurance for!!

I always thought that no damage caused by galvanic damage, rust etc would be paid for anyway.

 

What I would like to know please

 

If you had the forthought

 

What would you have done said different, that you think may have made a difference to your claim

What could been done to get a better outcome.

 

This is what may help others if this happens again.

 

Thank you in advance

 

Big col

 

Hi Big Col. We bought our September 2004 steel narrowboat in March 2009. It had been built by Dragon narrowboats during 2003 and first used in September 2004 after fitting out professionally to a fairly basic cruising standard. At that time (2009) she was in great condition, the best we had seen in two years of looking. In October 2009 we submitted her for bitchumen blacking at the same marina that eventually allowed her to sink while in their care. I had asked them to report to me on any unusual aspects of the hull sides while out of the water so they could be attended to then. I had no reason to employ another surveyor at that time.

 

The boat was returned afloat, job done and no reports. I carried out the same process at the same marina in May 2012, and got the boat back exactly as on the previous occasion. 6 months down the line from May 2012 I had noticed a quick return to the waterline rust bubbles that usually indicate the hull is ready for blacking again. I thought that perhaps there might have been something wrong with the previous paint application, perhaps it had been put on a wet surface after cleaning off?

 

In February 2014 I entered negotiations with the same marina for her next blacking, telling them about the rust bubbles, and asking for a quote for perhaps the application of a rust killer once the boat had been cleaned off. They advised that due to the boat's age - approaching 10 years by then, I might consider grit blasting followed by the more durable epoxy blacking. This is the final job they carried out for me, actually ringing me to inform me our boat was again afloat and ready to collect from their marina on completion. It was us who found her sunk at her temporary mooring the day after as we arrived to collect her.

 

Once the boat was ashore again it could be clearly seen that not all was well with the hull condition, the sides were severely pitted, and one under the swim had penetrated the full thickness, 6mm of the steel side close to the prop shaft exit. The boat had been relaunched after blacking in this condition. Moreover, it had been relaunched at 4pm on a Friday afternoon, after a potentially invasive process, unsupervised, and had been left to sink overnight.

 

Both my own surveyor, the insurance appointed surveyor, and a surveyor who had been a casual observer during 2014 all believe the uninsured hull damage was due to galvanic corrosion. The very experienced insurance surveyor had his opinions about connecting a steel narrowboat to shore power for extended periods, and the casual observer had asked to inspect our boat because he was conducting his own research into the effects of shore power / galvanized piling / and flowing water against premature corrosion. He asked our boat's permanent mooring location, which of course fitted his theory, moored on the Llangollen canal - 4mph flow of water, against good condition piling, and connected to shore power more or less permanently.

 

The shore power supply was later tested as good with no apparent issues, as was my own galvanic isolator.

 

Interestingly, all three surveyors commented that the actual blacking job was severley sub-standard, and could never have offered sufficient protection underwater in future, had the boat no sunk on this occasion.

 

My insurance, after some argument, eventually agreed to accept my claim for damage as a consequence of sinking due to the negligence of the marina. (they initially wanted to reject my claim due to the boat sinking because of a "slow and preventable ingress of water"). It was my own surveyor who proved the negligence and speed of sinking by the size of hole in the hull. For reference my insure was not inetrested in who was in charge of the boat when it sank, their get out of a preventable occurrence would be applied in any case.

 

It was always going to be my own responsibility to fund the actual hull repairs that caused the sinking, but I remain unhappy that the blacking was later found to be of poor quality, as well as it had been the same marina that had been "looking after" our boat maintenance on a regular basis for the last 5 years. I hold a quote to repair the hull at £5000, but was reluctant to spend this bearing in mind I didn't appear to be going to get the other repairs carried out to a proper detailed standard by N&G. I considered my only course of action to be, in the end, get rid of the boat. The hull pitting was blatently obvious even to me when I saw it out of the water.

 

My advice to any boat owner would now be to note detail of a boat yard's insurer BEFORE any work is undertaken.

 

Personally supervise any work, or arrange for an independent surveyor to supervise more complicated work.

 

Don't just buy insurance cover based on price. Always check thoroughly the scope of cover offered before agreeing it. The wording of policies is also such that get outs are not always immediately obvious to the layman. Take extra care reading the wording.

 

Finally, undertake as much research as possible relating to galvanic corrosion before leaving your boat "plugged in" permanently as we did.

[bigcol]

Many thanks Raz for that

 

I must admit, it's scarey, we live on our boat, permatley connected to shore power in a marina boat yard for years like so many boaters do?

I have blacked it ourselves three times in the past 4 years, once the boat was outs anyway for BT installation.

 

I have also used Craftinsure ever since I've had boats on the canal. For poss 6 years.

 

Being a 2008 boat, that has some gavonic corrosion, yep got me thinking.

I would also poss go for sand blastic and using 2 pack, maybe get a Surveyer out now the boat is 7 years old, if the survey comes back hopefully insureable, surely the insurance company are happy with the risk factor.

If not what is insurance for?

If the owner looks after a boat, takes it out every 2 years for blacking, has a recent survey, and a leak starts through a pit hole,Moho pays??

What is insurance for,someone hitting you visa versa, theft, what else??

 

Again thank you for relaying your story,

insurance companys maybe should have their own survey carried outsurveying the risk, before insuring/ taking the boat on! Of course it be more expensive, but at least there should not be any problem like you have had,

if a boat has a (fast fit area of hull corrosion)unknown to the owner. Surely that's what's insurance is about?

Edited January 26, 2015 by bigcol

[Henhouse]

I am the owner who is mentioned here whose boat sank during routine maintenance carried out by a marina. My blog, also mentioned here was to inform other boat owners of the potential to loose everything without really trying, so that they might be more prudent in their own dealings with marinas, boatyards and insurance companies.

 

Hello Raz,

 

Firstly, welcome to the mad house !, and Thank You for contributing to this thread.

 

I highlighted your blog as have followed it for sometime, and have been horrified by your experience. You do have my utmost sympathy.

 

However, I did feel it was important for people to know of the problems you have had with insurance companies.

 

Regardless of the circumstances which caused Kelly Louise to sink. It is the fact that your insurance proved to be inadequate which I find most worrying.

 

In essence, It did not provide cover for an event for which most reasonable people would wish to be insured . In effect, I see it as unfit for purpose. ( I choose my wording carefully).

 

 

Whilst I would not wish this thread to cause you any further distress, neither would I want to see anyone else in similar circumstances, and would urge people to check the detail of their insurance cover.

[Raz]

The corrosion damage to the hull was classed by my insurer, after inspection, to be "wear and tear" and as such, wasn't covered by insurance. I suspect this would be the case whether the hull had a recent survey or not. The survey requirement by insurance companies is, I believe only relevant for the immediate time they accept the risk. I readily accepted that the cost of repairs here would be mine. What I found hard to take in was that after grit blasting, when the hull was so obviously pitted, the boatyard did not think I needed to be informed, so that perhaps further inspections by a surveyor might take place. Instead they simply painted over the damage, relaunched the boat, and caused thousands of pounds worth of further damage by its sinking.

 

Although I had a bit of an uphill struggle initially to get my insurer to accept liability, after showing them that my own maintenance regime, (left to "professionals"), was in fact good, (I was able to show previous receipts for blacking), and my surveyor was able to confirm his own findings regarding the job itself, and the condition the boat was in when relaunched, they eventually accepted my claim.

 

Unfortunately, this had to be made within the confines of my own policy wording, which subsequently proved to be unsatisfactory to provide future reliability for the boat once repaired in this way. When I first discovered the boat sunk, I had naively expected to be able to make my claim to either my own insurer or the yard's insurer, and everything would be taken care of, returning a boat with its internals in the same condition as when I left it. In those circumstances I would have been happy to fund the required hull corrosion repairs. (I would have been even happier to fund the hull repairs at the time of discovery, before blacking, when we still had bare steel). Unfortunately this was not the case.

[bigcol]

Hit Raz put it like that, then surely the boat yard was at fault, putting grit blasted holes intto the thin steel, and blacking acRoss holes made by them selve back into the water knowing it will sink!!

 

Sure it's neglengence???

 

I'm so gutted for you, but the marina was at fault, they were the last people to touch your boat

Lauching a boat,due to the work that made holes, they carried out will obviously sink!!

 

Is stupidity and shows gross incompetence, good job it wasn't a plane they were working on!!

 

Despair how can a marina be so negligent and get away with it?

[Raz]

Hit Raz put it like that, then surely the boat yard was at fault, putting grit blasted holes intto the thin steel, and blacking acRoss holes made by them selve back into the water knowing it will sink!!

 

Sure it's neglengence???

 

I'm so gutted for you, but the marina was at fault, they were the last people to touch your boat

Lauching a boat,due to the work that made holes, they carried out will obviously sink!!

 

Is stupidity and shows gross incompetence, good job it wasn't a plane they were working on!!

 

Despair how can a marina be so negligent and get away with it?

 

Yes, sure it was negligence, that is what my own insurer was eventually forced to pay out on. The difficult part I found was getting the boat yard to accept their responibilities. Had they immediately provided their insurance details at the time of my first request for example, I would have attempted to claim directly from theirs to perhaps have a more appropriate internal repair done in accordance with my own surveyor's recommendations. They didn't, and I then had to go down the route of using Legal Expenses Insurance from another policy I held to try and claim what in effect were uninsured losses - the loss in material value of my boat due to the sinking. I have since found out, after further research, that LEI is very limited in what it can be successfully used for, and usually relates to simply making a claim to a 3rd party insurer, with court being an absolute last resort.

 

The long and drawn out circumstances of my particular case meant that having followed the route of a claim on my own insurance, who eventually paid out in cash, the solicitor was informed by the yard's insurer, when they actually found out their identity, that even though they accepted full liability, they were not going to entertain my further claim for uninsured losses. They also refused to fund the costs of my own surveyor, stating that as my insurer had provided one, then why would I need another, and if I chose to engage one, then that was purely my own choice. I hope I have shown though that it was in fact my own surveyor, working for me, not my insurer, who was central to forcing them to pay out at all.

 

For the record, my surveyor measured the hull sides thickness to still be consistently 6mm throughout with no loss of thickness from original build depth. The problem was that the sides of the hull, particularly the side that I moored against the piling, was peppered by hundreds of small diameter holes, just as though a drill had been taken to it. These ranged in depth between 2.5mm and 4mm, although we know that one of them in the area of the engine bay penetrated the full depth. There could have been other full depth holes that were filled with paint, and that was all that was holding the canal at bay. Although the hull had been newly blacked in epoxy as part of this failed job, my surveyor reported that many of these pit holes contained no paint at all, were still bare metal after the grit blast, and were already weeping fresh rust. The hull sides appeared to have simply and quickly been rollered. I could see that for myself.

 

The type of repair to the hull, for which I have the quote, and was the recommendation of the insurance appointed surveyor, was single station welding to the deepest of the pits rather than overplating. Of course to do this, all of the contracted work of git blast and blacking afterwards would then have to be done all over again. Another bone of contention of mine is that the marina insisted I pay for their "job" in full before I could remove my boat, along with storage charges, a total of over £2500. My solicitor advised that these charges must be paid under duress, and then reclaimed later using any method I could. Proper access to law though proved to be far too expensive and risky even at the levels of loss we were exposed to.

[Shockabilly]

​Insurance…a good friend of mine works at a senior level in the industry, I was out to dinner with him a couple of weeks ago and the conversation turned to insurance companies paying out etc, his counsel was 'beware of insurance companies' and always, repeat 'always' remember that an insurance companies prime concern is with themselves and that their job is to stay in business, look for the cheapest option for them, avoid paying out if at all possible and as to who is to blame is neither here nor there; I was also quite shocked at the massive 'mark up' from what they pay to what they charge you for your policy…insurance companies are shrouded in an invisibility cloak with few people fully understand their dark workings.

[bigcol]

Reading the post from shockabilly

It's quite diferent from insurance company's advertising,

they will look after us etc

Under their umbrella of protection.

Caring people who make your claim easy,quick and uncomplicated

A smooth transaction

 

Col

[Blazeaway]

​Insurance…a good friend of mine works at a senior level in the industry, I was out to dinner with him a couple of weeks ago and the conversation turned to insurance companies paying out etc, his counsel was 'beware of insurance companies' and always, repeat 'always' remember that an insurance companies prime concern is with themselves and that their job is to stay in business, look for the cheapest option for them, avoid paying out if at all possible and as to who is to blame is neither here nor there; I was also quite shocked at the massive 'mark up' from what they pay to what they charge you for your policy…insurance companies are shrouded in an invisibility cloak with few people fully understand their dark workings.

 

Not shooting the messenger here........how on earth are any of us who seek insurance to apply the cautionary tale and advice of "beware of insurance companies". How does one do that ? Rhetorical question that none of us can really answer.

[Raz]

 

Not shooting the messenger here........how on earth are any of us who seek insurance to apply the cautionary tale and advice of "beware of insurance companies". How does one do that ? Rhetorical question that none of us can really answer.

 

When I had my first meeting with my insurance appointed surveyor, sat within the damaged cabin of my boat, he laid out in no uncertain terms what I should and should not expect from my Craftinsure policy should I wish to pursue a claim using that, (although my claim had been passed to their underwriters Navigators & General, who would now be dealing with me throughout).

 

He gave me much information and advice after inspecting all aspects of damage to my boat. The consequences of the sinking were his main interest, not the corrosion damage to the hull, which he told me at the outset would not be covered by insurance, and I already suspected that from the information my surveyor gave me.

 

During his description of the type of repairs I might expect from my policy, I became shocked, as I had already had a survey completed by my own surveyor 10 days earlier and the two repair schedules bore no resemblence to each other, the insurance repair being much less comprehensive. I was told in no uncertain terms that was all I could expect, and was the reason he advised I should first try and claim direcly off the marina's insurer.

 

Part of the advice he gave me was that I should only "expect to get what I paid" for from my Craftinsure policy. He classed it as a budget online offering and as such I was expecting too much from it, stating that if I had wanted repairs in line with my surveyor's recommendations (full strip down and all water damaged parts replaced with new) from a marine insurance policy, then my annual premium would be £ thousands not the £ hundreds as I was paying.

 

This is the root of my advice to anyone now. Always buy insurance by what its scope of cover is within a reasonable budget that you are able to accept. I know that most of us buy our insurance according to its price - isn't that what the online comparison sites are all about? But it should be level of cover that is important, with its wording fully understood, not the price. Painful to the pocket, but not as painful as discovering your only alternative is weak cover in the event of a major claim as I did. For information my Craftinsure policy covered my September 2004 57 foot narrowboat, valued at £50,000 fully comprehensive for an annual premium of around £140. I had held the policy claim free for 8 years. They paid out cash in lieu of repairs at £5000. My surveyor estimated "proper and detailed" repairs would be around £20,000 to ensure no loss of value due to sinking as well as providing future reliability. Remebering of course that none of this was my fault.