How much insurance do you have? If you drive, you have car insurance. Do you own your own home? Do you have home owners insurance? Many people do. Home owner insurance premiums went up by nearly 6% in 2013. The increase in these premiums was 5.6% in 2012. This is according to a National Association of Insurance Commissioners study that was released in February 2016. Approximately 5.3% of homeowners with insurance filed claims in 2014. More than 97% of the claims that were filed were due to property damage. This includes theft. More than half of all insured homeowners prepare inventories of all of their belongings to help them if and when they need to file a claim with their insurance carrier. So, you may have auto insurance and home owners insurance but if you have a boat, do you have boat insurance.
No one wants to need to use their insurance. Many people do not get life insurance because they do not want to think about dying. There really is no reason to not get motorcycle insurance or boat insurance, however. If you have these items, you need to insure them.
1. Who needs boat insurance?
Anyone who owns and operates a boat should invest in boat insurance. Some people think that their home owners insurance, or even their renters insurance, will cover their boat but that is not true. Unless you have a really tiny boat with the smallest engine or no engine, your home owners insurance policy will not cover your boat. There are some policies that cover these small and less expensive boats but if the boat is worth more than $10,000, the home owner insurance policy will not cover it.
Talk to your auto insurance provider. There are some car insurance policies that will allow you to add and bundle a boat insurance policy with your car insurance.
2. Boat insurance is kind of like a mix between car and home insurance.
The insurance policy you have for your home that covers injuries that occur at your home. Boat insurance policies will cover injuries on your boat. Your car insurance covers your liability if someone is hurt by your car. The same kind of coverage comes with boat insurance policies. You can add more comprehensive coverage to cover vandalism, fire, theft and even floods on your boat. Boat insurance can even cover “roadside” assistance. For times when you are not using your boat, say you store it for the winter, you can suspend your boat insurance. This is not an option for car or home insurance.
When your boat is out of the water, it is typically covered by your car insurance. When a boat is being towed by a truck, its coverage falls under the coverage for that vehicle. So if the person towing the boat, accidentally hits someone with the boat, the coverage would come from whatever policy covers that vehicle. Boat insurance only covers the boat when it is in the water. That can be a problem if the car insurance policy is very limited in what it covers. If your boat is damaged while on your home property, your home insurance may offer some help. Your homeowners policy most likely will not cover any theft or vandalism.
3. Be careful about where you take your boat.
When people buy boat insurance, they often assume that their policy will cover them no matter where on the planet they go with their boat. There are often navigational and geographic limits placed on where the boat will be covered. Small boats (up to 26 feet) are normally covered when they are in the coastal or inland waters in the United States and Canada. For larger boats, many insurance carriers have more specific geographic limits. if you want to take your boat out of the area you know you are covered, talk to your boat insurance carrier. Now, you may want to reconsider some areas for boating. Most American boat insurance carriers do not cover the waters off of Somalia, for example.andnbsp;
If you have a boat, you should talk to your car and home owners insurance carriers about your options for boat insurance.
