Liability insurance. Required by many if not a majority of marinas and boat yards. Also inexpensive and covers an unlikely risk but one which can have immense costs.
Hull insurance: Easy to argue you are careful and don't do stupid things. Yep, that will get you a reduced rate after five years of non-claims. However, twice in the last ten years I have had to listen to tales of woe from friends who have had their boat severely damaged through no fault of their own and couldn't collect from the person at fault.
If you go outside of the US, Canada or Australia beware of the rental operations. They claim no responsibility when their jet ski or Hobi crashes into your boat. You are left to chase the renter who may be from distant country where you will not find justice.
The second is even more frequent. You hire a workman who appears competent, but causes a fire, sinking or other damage only to find out the workman has no assets.
You can assume risks like these but don't cry injustice if your gamble goes bad.
Marty,
Good points, but there some other points to be made, too.
First, with liability: To have a liability judgement against you there are four things that must happen, and one is negligence... you must be negligent to be responsible, thus my comment about just not doing something stupid. You'll be fine if you don't do something stupid. (from my insurance agent).
Second, will hull insuring: You examples are just poppycock. Who the heck is going to a foreign country and have a jet ski run into them? Has it EVER happened? And who the heck lets and unknown workers on their precious boat? We certainly have a choice there.
Now, I've got NO problem if one wants to buy these products, and I do myself, when I feel the risk is appropriate. Right now, I've got both boats fully covered, and based on my comments here, I bet you're surprised. One boat I have partners in which insist on full coverage, which I'm trying to talk them out of. The other is a new boat, that will do a lot of traveling in new area with a new skipper... relatively high risk, and the premium is dirt cheap, so perhaps it makes sense.
Just with the numbers.... if one is a AVERAGE person, and partakes things with AVERAGE care and safety, and pays the AVERAGE premiums for his toys, and has the AVERAGE number of claims, he will end up loosing about 1/3rd of his dollar spent. But, I know that's not the answer folks like to hear. They all mention the multi million dollar award from someone that slipped on your boat. Heck, there's even a limit to how much liability you can purchase and if you hit a tour boat full of kids when you're drunk, you won't have enough.
Just a different view point... not good or bad.