Check carefully the fine print in an umbrella policy, many won’t insure a boat with HP over a certain limit.
Check the fine print in all insurance policies.
Check carefully the fine print in an umbrella policy, many won’t insure a boat with HP over a certain limit.
Wow, so much bad advice and poor thinking flowing on this thread. Start in reverse order. How much can you be sued for? Everything you have, including future earnings and potential inheritances. A broke 80-year old living on a clapped-out 50-year old wood-hulled trawler needs a lot less insurance than a recently-retired 60-year old with 2 houses, a nice boat, and $3 million in savings and investments. Your Umbrella should be your net worth rounded up to the next million. Your yacht policy should cover, at minimum, maximum EPA fine (over $800K) plus $1 million liability, with your Umbrella over that.
Just my two cents as a professional in the insurance industry.
But isnt that what many are saying....you never know what enough is?
But you do know that some amounts are clearly not enough. Added liability coverage limits and umbrella policies are relatively inexpensive compared to other policies. You can get coverage than will cover the vast majority of claims and that 99% of claimants will settle for. You can't protect against all possible risks through insurance. Those with exceptionally high risks try to protect in other ways as well, such as ownership of assets, especially any business assets.
Does anyone have an real world examples?
An example of a guy who looses his house, savings, shirt off of his back by being sued by an insurance company to cover losses beyond his insurance liability maximums?
The claim ended up something like $100k actual damages from medical and loss of work and they sued for $10 million pain and suffering. A jury awarded them $4 million.
Typical South Florida jury award! Miami-Dade courts are a real favorite of plaintiff attorneys.
I would say the good insurance is well worth it. Hopefully you wont ever get any critical damage. But if you do, the cost can go up really fast. At lest the boat is in a decent shape.