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Insurance survey costs


Lady_Why

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What are people's experience of cost of insurance surveys? I recently realised my boat is 30+ and that my insurers require an out of water survey. I'm not sure why insurance surveys are charged differently, but I've been quoted £820 for my 63ft narrowboat. Is that steep or what I should have anticipated? It's Tony Tucker and he came recommended on FB forums. He seems good, but not sure if I should shop around.

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5 minutes ago, Lady_Why said:

What are people's experience of cost of insurance surveys? I recently realised my boat is 30+ and that my insurers require an out of water survey. I'm not sure why insurance surveys are charged differently, but I've been quoted £820 for my 63ft narrowboat. Is that steep or what I should have anticipated? It's Tony Tucker and he came recommended on FB forums. He seems good, but not sure if I should shop around.

If that includes the lift out / lift in costs I'd say its about 'right', if the lift fees are on-top its quite high.

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Answer I have just put on your similar Facebook question.....

 

Quote

Assuming it doesn't include the lift out and docking, I think £820 sounds expensive. I am surprised that some surveyors are saying they price by the foot, because whilst taking thickness measurements is length related, travel costs and writing up a report are not. I have a 72 foot historic boat, so pricing at £15 per foot would be a staggering £1,080, without the docking, does this include VAT?) Certainly a well respected historic boat surveyor I use would not charge anything like that.
Where is this boat - it might produce recommendations.....

 

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If you find the 'right surveyor' you could probably get one issued for "a couple of hundred quid" ( a surveyor commonly used for the BSS in our marina is not qualified to conduct liveaboard BSS surveys, so the occupants go-out for the day)

 

Do you want a boat that is 'safe' and unlikely to sink and meets all of the insurance criteria and will result in a 'pay-out' if the worse happens, or

Do you want a piece of paper that allows you to get insurance cover but may result in 'questions' being asked in the event of a claim ?

 

It is a lot of money and I'd suggest that the £820 could be found nearer £550 - £600, but only you can decide how risk averse you want to be.

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Hi,

 I wanted to find out the condition of the hull on my 17 year old, 48ft boat and Tony Tucker did a HULL survey for me - cost - £400. I coupled it with having the boat blacked and this made good any scraping/hammering of the blacking and hull a Surveyor has to do in conjunction with ultrasonic testing/steel condition inspection.

 

He produced a helpful report which focused on the boat having too many anodes fitted.

 

Find out exactly what sort of inspection/survey the insurers want and instruct the Surveyor accordingly.

 

Hope this helps.

 

L.

  • Greenie 1
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When I had Keb surveyed for it's 30th birthday I only had a hull survey done. I had a current BSC and whilst this isn't the be all and end all of boat safety it is about as good as it gets. A hull survey is considerably cheaper than a full survey. So if you are familiar with the boat and are happy with it then just get a hull survey done.

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I've just booked a surveyor to do a hull survey whilst the boat is out of the water for blacking. Cost £350. This is for my own piece-of-mind, boat is 30 years old and was last survey on purchase 11 years ago. Our insurers don't insist on surveys as long as you continue to insure with them. £820 sounds very rich, unless an "insurance survey" covers a lot more stuff than a hull survey, and I can't imagine it would.

 

MP.

 

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  • 2 months later...

Hello! Sincere apologies to everyone who responded - for some reasons the responses did not go through to my email account so I thought I'd had no further replies! Turns out that my insurance company just wanted a hull survey (I made sure to get that in writing) and they were fine by the one offered by P&S marina for £400+. I am a little miffed with the person who quoted me as he probably knew that a hull survey only was needed, but quoted me a full on one. When I have the time I'm gonna go back and double check the email he sent me. 

The £250 one sounds good - where was that?

On 05/09/2018 at 18:03, MoominPapa said:

I've just booked a surveyor to do a hull survey whilst the boat is out of the water for blacking. Cost £350. This is for my own piece-of-mind, boat is 30 years old and was last survey on purchase 11 years ago. Our insurers don't insist on surveys as long as you continue to insure with them. £820 sounds very rich, unless an "insurance survey" covers a lot more stuff than a hull survey, and I can't imagine it would.

 

MP.

 

Which insurer are you with? The hull survey came out fine so I'd be a little loath doing one in a few years time since it is unlikely that it has deteriorated that much more.

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My last hull survey cost £350.  The boat was already in dry dock so this doesn't include the cost of docking.

These surveys may seem expensive, but a thorough surveyor will spend the best part of a day going over every inch of the hull with his hammer.

Edited by koukouvagia
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4 hours ago, Lady_Why said:

The £250 one sounds good - where was that?

 

This was at Fenny Compton Marina dry dock on the southern Oxford. I had the boat booked in for dry-docking for blacking (£650-ish, iirc) so I booked the hull survey at the same time on day one, so the hull could be inspected immediately before the new blacking application began. 

 

The surveyor's name escapes me for the moment, but he often gets mentioned on here. It will come to me shortly!

 

Edited by Mike the Boilerman
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