Insurance 1980 Mainship 34

Any insurance recommendations, tips for insuring older mainship? I have gotten a few online quotes, range form annual of $2300 for agreed value of 30K to $1000.00 with a value by them of 15K. I have no claims, 40+ years on water, captain license.
I have not purchased vessel yet, just putting all pieces in place so i can make a sound decision.
thanks

I went through the same exercise this spring, also on a 1980 Mainship 34, I ended up going with Progressive because it was the path of least resistance. I had a pre-purchase survey but they didn't even require a copy. I don't have the policy in front of my but I believe the premium was right around $1300, the loss coverage is right at the sale price of $28K and my liability coverage is $500k. This is the bare minimum that my marina requires. I did have a few repair items on my survey, I am following the plan that my surveyor recommended, some items needed to be addressed immediately and I'm working through more this fall now that I'm hauled out again. I plan to have the boat resurveyed in the spring and use this to shop policies again.

I did reach out to my insurance broker once I was narrowed down to a couple specific boats, prior to placing each under contract and he did shop policies for me, it was a bit slow moving and by the time he was able to get a solid policy together, I had already settled and on the boat and had Progressive in place, the policy he offered was better coverage for a lower premium and I plan to start my insurance shopping with him next spring. This plan did require a survey and would have required all recommended survey findings to be addressed within 30 days, it really didn't offer much in the way of consideration of urgency and it would have been very hard to have all repairs complete within 30 days of closing.

I understand that Progressive is not highly regarded and it is not my long term solution.

Welcome aboard. Check with Pau Hana here on TF. He is an insurance broker and lots of members here have said he helped them.

Thanks for the input, good info! If i purchase I will probably do what gdavid has done then reach out to Paul and shop around a bit, won't feel under a timeline then.

I also recommend a good insurance broker. We use a broker in Seattle that specializes in marine insurance. When we purchased our 1979 out of curiosity I tried the on line quotes, none were as good as what my broker obtained. We selected Red Shield Insurance out of Portland Oregon but there were other companies with similar offers. The insurance company did want a survey and confirmation within some period of time that necessary repairs had been completed (safety related such as fire extinguisher dates etc). However on the repairs they were not demanding proof, only a statement that they'd been completed (though I could have given the proof if required). Insurance companies can be touchy about the 110V systems in older boats before the ABYC standards were developed. I guess these have caused fires.

We have been BoatUS customers for four decades. Recently purchased a 1977 Mainship MK I. BoatUS refused to cover due to age. Did get insurance from my home/auto company.

baykat said:

Any insurance recommendations, tips for insuring older mainship? I have gotten a few online quotes, range form annual of $2300 for agreed value of 30K to $1000.00 with a value by them of 15K. I have no claims, 40+ years on water, captain license.
I have not purchased vessel yet, just putting all pieces in place so i can make a sound decision.
thanks

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I shopped for insurance last year when my policy doubled in cost. The lowest price policy I could find was from Geico BUT they required a fresh survey which would have cost about $1K. In your case, you will surely have the boat surveyed prior to purchase so Geico might be worth checking.

thanks for the replies guys. Very helpful to learn what others have done to hopefully get the best value for the money.